Branches View

The Branches view provides full branch lifecycle management — create, switch, merge, rebase, push, pull, and delete branches with visual ahead/behind indicators and upstream tracking.

Accessing the Branches View

• Click the GitBranch icon in the activity bar
• The current branch is also shown in the TopBar and StatusBar

Layout

The Branches view displays a tree-grouped list of branches with:

• Toolbar — New Branch button, Refresh, and a filter input
• Branch tree — branches grouped by path prefix (e.g., feature/auth and feature/dashboard nest under feature/)
• Current branch highlighted with a filled circle
• Ahead/behind indicators — ↑N (commits ahead) and ↓N (commits behind) per branch
• Remote-only section — branches that exist only on the remote

Features

Branch Tree

Branches are displayed as a tree grouped by path prefix:

• feature/auth and feature/dashboard nest under feature/
• The tree is collapsible for repos with many branches
• The current branch (HEAD) is highlighted with a filled circle

Ahead/Behind Indicators

Each branch with an upstream shows:

• ↑N — commits ahead of upstream (ready to push)
• ↓N — commits behind upstream (needs pull)
• Color-coded: green (ahead), orange (behind), grey (in sync)

Pull Mode

Per-branch pull strategy:

• Merge — git pull --no-rebase (default)
• Rebase — git pull --rebase
• Fast-forward only — git pull --ff-only

The pull mode is stored per-branch in localStorage and shown as a dropdown on the branch card.

Branch Operations

Create Branch

1. Click + New Branch in the toolbar
2. Enter branch name
3. Choose base (current HEAD, another branch, or a commit)
4. Optionally check out immediately

Switch Branch (Checkout)

• Double-click a branch to check it out
• Or right-click → Checkout
• Warns if working tree has uncommitted changes

Merge

• Right-click a branch → Merge into current
• Opens the Merge Dialog with strategy options:
  • Merge commit (default)
  • Squash
  • Fast-forward (if possible)
• If conflicts arise, switches to the Conflicts view

Rebase

• Right-click → Rebase current onto this
• Opens the Rebase Dialog
• Interactive rebase shows the todo list editor
• Supports edit, squash, fixup, drop operations

Push

• Right-click → Push (or use the ↑ button)
• Sets upstream if not configured
• Force push requires confirmation dialog

Pull

• Right-click → Pull (or use the ↓ button)
• Uses the configured pull mode for that branch
• Shows progress during fetch + merge/rebase

Delete

• Right-click → Delete
• Local-only delete by default
• Force delete (unmerged branches) requires confirmation
• Option to also delete the remote tracking branch

Rename

• Right-click → Rename
• Updates the local branch name
• Optionally updates the upstream tracking reference

Set Upstream

• Right-click → Set upstream
• Choose from available remote branches
• Or create a new remote tracking branch

Remote Management

The Remote Manager Popover (accessible from the toolbar) lets you:

• View configured remotes
• Add new remotes
• Remove remotes
• Fetch from specific remotes

Context Menu

Right-click any branch for the full action menu:

• Checkout
• Merge into current
• Rebase current onto
• Push / Pull / Fetch
• Create PR (if forge configured)
• Rename
• Set upstream
• Delete (with force option)
• Copy branch name

Forge Integration

When a forge provider (GitHub, GitLab) is detected:

• Create PR — opens the PR creation dialog pre-filled with the branch name and recent commits
• PR status — shows if a PR already exists for the branch
• CI status — shows pipeline/check status on the branch

Keyboard Shortcuts

Refresh Behavior

The branch list refreshes when:

• A git operation completes (commit, merge, push, pull)
• The file watcher detects .git/refs changes
• Manual refresh via toolbar button
• The view gains focus