I Built a VS Code Extension to Bring IntelliJ’s “ Show History for Selection ” Experience

If you come from IntelliJ, you probably miss one super useful feature in VS Code:

Show history for selected lines.

I built a new extension to solve exactly that.

Meet: Show History for Selected Code

This extension helps you inspect Git history for a specific code selection, not just the whole file.

What it does

Shows commit history for the lines you selected

Opens a side-by-side diff:

Parent (previous revision)

Revision (selected commit)

Syncs scrolling between both sides for easier comparison

Lets you resize the commits section

Click a commit message to open full details in a modal

Why I built it

In day-to-day debugging and code review, I often ask:

“Who changed this exact block?”

“What did this snippet look like before?”

“Why was this line introduced?”

git blame is useful, but it’s not enough when you want a clean visual timeline + commit-level diff focused on your selection.

So I built this…