GitContext Changelog

Multimedia Feedback

We're excited to announce you can now drag and drop image and video files directly into your code review comments, making it easier than ever to provide visual context for your feedback. Whether it's a screenshot of the product or a video highlighting an issue, sharing media in your pull request comments is seamless.

As always, all images and videos are bidirectionally synced with GitHub, ensuring your reviews stay perfectly aligned across both platforms.

Start adding images and videos to your reviews today!

Redesigned Pull Request Inbox

We’re excited to introduce a major update to your pull request inbox, making it easier and faster to manage your reviews. Our redesign focuses on improving functionality and readability, ensuring you stay on top of your code reviews with ease. Here’s what’s new:

• New Inbox Sections: Your pull request inbox is now divided into three sections—Attention Needed, Incoming, and Outgoing—so you can quickly see where your focus is needed.
• Clear Status Indicators: Every pull request now has a clearly visible, color-coded status, so you know exactly where things stand at a glance.
• Participant Overview: Easily see all participants involved in a pull request and whose turn it is to take action.
• T-Shirt Sizing: Understand the scope of pull requests with our new t-shirt sizing—small, medium, large, etc.—giving you a quick sense of the work involved.
• Quick Detail Access: Hover over any pull request to reveal additional details, including outstanding tasks, without needing to click through.
• Visual Enhancements: We’ve made numerous design improvements to display more information in a denser format while maintaining high readability.

This redesign is all about helping you work more efficiently. Dive in and experience a smoother, more intuitive pull request management process with GitContext!

Join Our New Discord Community! 🎉

We're excited to announce that our user community is moving from Slack to Discord! Our new Discord community is now live, and we invite you to join us for an even more dynamic and engaging experience.

In our Discord community, you'll be able to:

• Connect with Fellow Users: Share insights, ask questions, and learn from others who use our code review tool.
• Engage Directly with Our Team: Get the latest updates, provide feedback, and participate in discussions with our product developers.
• Access Exclusive Content: Be the first to know about new features, upcoming events, and more.

Our Slack community has been an incredible place for connection and growth, and we're confident that Discord will take this to the next level. We encourage all members to transition to our Discord community and continue building the relationships and knowledge-sharing we've all come to value.

Join the community here: https://gitcontext.com/community

We're excited to see you there!

Critique Keyboard Shortcuts

We’re thrilled to announce a new feature that will make code reviews even more efficient for our users—especially those who are familiar with Google’s internal code review tool, Critique.

Based on popular demand, GitContext now allows you to choose between our default keyboard shortcuts or the new Critique bindings. If you’re an ex-Googler or just prefer Critique’s shortcut setup, you can now switch to these familiar bindings and conduct your entire code review without ever needing to reach for your mouse.

Key Benefits:

• Familiarity: The Critique bindings mirror the exact shortcuts you’ve memorized from your time with Google, ensuring a smooth transition.
• Efficiency: Whether you stick with the default shortcuts or switch to Critique bindings, you’ll be able to navigate, comment, and approve code faster than ever.

To switch to Critique bindings, simply go to your settings and select the option that best suits your workflow.

Comment Reactions

We're excited to introduce emoji-based reactions on pull request comments! Now, you can quickly and easily express your opinion with a simple reaction to any comment. Whether it’s a thumbs up, a laugh, or anything else, reactions make collaboration more fun and efficient. As always, GitContext supports seamless bidirectional syncing with GitHub, ensuring that all comment reactions are reflected across platforms.

Happy reviewing!

Enhanced Control Bar

We're excited to introduce our latest enhancement to GitContext—the all-new control bar designed to make navigating and completing your code reviews even more efficient.

What's New?

• Persistent Control Bar: Now affixed to the footer of your pull request view, the control bar stays with you as you scroll, ensuring you always have immediate access to essential actions and information.
• Task Overview: The control bar displays counts for three key tasks—files to review, discussions to read, and assignments to address. As you complete each task, the counts decrement, giving you a clear path to finishing your review.
• Quick Navigation: Each task count is clickable, allowing you to jump directly to the next file, unread discussion, or pending assignment with ease. The convenient Next button also helps you move seamlessly through your tasks.
• Review Tracking and Submission: The control bar’s Submit button keeps track of your pending review actions—like reviewed files and comments. The count of pending items is displayed within the button. Click the count to preview all pending actions before submitting your review. Once ready, hit Submit to share your review, or Merge if the pull request is approved.

The new control bar is your omnipresent assistant, providing a clear overview of your tasks, quick access to them, and an easy way to track and complete your code review. By remaining fixed at the bottom of your screen, it ensures you always have the tools you need, right where you need them.

Happy reviewing!

Snoozing Pull Requests

We’re excited to announce a new feature designed to make your code review process even more efficient: Pull Request Snooze.

At GitContext, we understand that your "Needs Attention" list in the inbox is your go-to place for tracking pull requests where it’s your turn to act. However, not all pull requests require immediate action. Some may be long-running or simply not ready for your review. To help you maintain focus and keep your "Needs Attention" list clean, we’ve introduced the ability to snooze pull requests.

With Pull Request Snooze, you can temporarily remove a pull request from your "Needs Attention" list. You have the flexibility to snooze it until new activity occurs on the pull request or choose a specific date in the future for it to reappear in your list. This way, you can manage your workload more effectively and ensure that only the most pressing tasks are front and center.

We’re confident this new feature will give you greater control over your review process and help you drive toward pull request zero. Happy reviewing!

Online Teammate Tracking

Collaboration is at the heart of every successful code review process. It's not just about checking each other's work—it’s also an opportunity to share insights, discuss best practices, and solve problems together. At GitContext, we’re committed to fostering a more cohesive and collaborative team environment.

What’s New:

• See Who’s Online: A new sidebar on the main screen now displays which teammates are currently online.
• Track Engagement: You can see at a glance which pull requests your teammates are reviewing, enhancing your ability to jump in and collaborate.
• Real-Time Presence Indicators: On the pull request detail view, each participant’s avatar lights up with a green indicator when they are online, making it easier to know who’s available for immediate feedback.

With these updates, conducting a code review in GitContext is now more like having a real-time conversation. We’re only starting to scratch the surface of real-time collaboration we’re looking to bring to the code review process - stay tuned for more!

Pull Request Timeline

Pull requests are dynamic, evolving with each review, commit, and update. While we’ve excelled at tracking code changes within pull requests, we recognized the need for a clearer view of the pull request's overall progression. Today, we’re excited to bridge that gap with our Pull Request Timeline.

In the collapsable sidebar of every pull request you can now view a timeline of events associated with the pull request.  It provides a chronological view of all significant events - commits, reviews, comments, deployments, and more.

Pop open a pull request, click to expand the sidebar, and check it out.  It provides valuable context you've been missing when conducting a code review, making your code review process more informed and efficient.

Real-Time Updates

We're excited to announce that real-time, synchronous updates have arrived on GitContext! We've added socket connections to immediately notify the application of any changes to underlying data, updating pull requests in real-time as commits are pushed and reviews are submitted.

What's New:

• Automatic Addition of New Pull Requests: As soon as they are created, new pull requests appear in your dashboard.
• Real-Time Updates for Existing Pull Requests: Changes like submitted reviews, new commits, merges, and more are reflected instantly.
• Immediate Notifications for New Branches: Get instant notifications with an option to create a new pull request whenever new branches are pushed.

This new functionality ensures data in GitContext stays in sync with zero delays.

Pull Requests Needing Attention

Many former Googlers rave about Critique, Google's internal code review tool. They are especially fond of the "Attention Set" - a feature that highlights open pull requests currently waiting on you. Inspired by this concept, we've integrated a similar feature into GitContext, but with our own flair.

What’s New:

• Prioritized Pull Request List: When you log into GitContext, you'll now see your pull requests neatly subdivided, with those needing your attention prominently displayed at the top. This list acts like a To-Do list, specifically tailored to ensure you never miss a critical task.
• Response Time Indicator: Each pull request that needs your attention includes a badge outlining how long it's been waiting on you. These badges change from friendly to urgent colors as time passes and your coworkers wait.
• Rewards for Completion: Completing your entire pull request To-Do list brings not only satisfaction but also fun rewards. For those familiar with Critique, think of this as your Attention Set "going green."

This is all made possible by GitContext's advanced turn tracking capabilities, which allows us to track who's turn it is to act - down to the individual conversation level - better than any other code review tool out there.

We believe this new functionality will not only enhance your productivity but also add a little fun to your day. Check it out the next time you sign-in.

Front-end Framework Upgrade to Svelte 5

At GitContext, we understand that speed is crucial when crafting the ideal user experience for conducting code reviews. Even milliseconds can be the difference between frustration and joy. That’s why we originally chose Svelte - one of the fastest front-end frameworks available - as the foundation of our application.

We’ve always appreciated Svelte's performance and developer-friendly ergonomics. With the release of Svelte 5, our enthusiasm has only grown. Svelte 5 introduces a major overhaul of the framework, switching to signals as the primary mechanism for reactivity, which brings it closer to the performance of running vanilla JavaScript in the browser.

Today we're thrilled to announce we've upgraded GitContext to Svelte 5, making our platform quicker and more efficient than ever. We invite you to sign in, experience the enhanced performance, and see how GitContext provides the fastest and most efficient code reviewing experience out there.

Keyboard Shortcuts

At GitContext, we're committed to building the most user-friendly and efficient code reviewing experience possible. We strive to minimize the effort required for code reviews, and we're excited to announce that our efforts now extend to reducing hand movements. Our newly launched keyboard shortcuts enable you to conduct an entire code review without reaching for your mouse.

Simply open a pull request and press "Shift + ?" to bring up the keyboard shortcut help menu. Use your left hand to quickly handle file-related actions, such as navigating to the next file or marking a file as reviewed. Use your right hand for commenting on code and engaging in existing conversations.

These shortcuts are designed to significantly cut down the time and effort needed to complete your code reviews. Dive in and experience the difference!

Streamlined Permissions for Enhanced Security

TLDR: Our GitHub Application is Now Read-Only!

We are excited to share a significant update to our GitHub application that enhances security without sacrificing functionality. In response to your feedback about the importance of security and sensitivity surrounding repository permissions, we have made some changes:

• Reduced Permissions: Our main GitHub app now only requires read permissions for connected repositories. This update has been applied automatically to all existing and future installations - no action is required on your part.
• Optional Advanced Permissions: For users who need to merge pull requests or perform other write-dependent tasks, we offer the "GitContext - Advanced Permissions" application. Installing this optional application is only necessary if you need those advanced features. Should you try to perform an action that requires it, you’ll receive a prompt to install this additional application.

This streamlined approach ensures our commitment to your security while providing the flexibility to tailor the features to your needs. Thank you for your trust and continued support.

IDE Direct Linking

We are excited to introduce a powerful new feature that connects our code review platform directly with your local development environment. GitContext's new IDE direct links allow you to effortlessly view modified code directly in your IDE with just one click.

How It Works:

• Quick Setup: In a one-time setup, specify your IDE and set a prefix for the absolute path where your repository resides.
• Seamless Navigation: During any code review, right-click on a line of code and select "Open in IDE" from the link menu. You'll be instantly taken to that line in the corresponding file within your IDE, allowing you to edit or examine the code within the full context of your project.

No more switching between code review and your IDE. IDE direct linking is fully customizable and works with any IDE and coding environment setup.

History Mode

GitContext is designed to streamline code reviews, ensuring you never have to review the same code twice if you don't want to. It intelligently tracks your progress, so you only review changes from where you last left off.

Since reviewers are most interested in the evolution of code between reviews rather than individual commits, GitContext snapshots the code each time a review is submitted. These snapshots, called "revisions," form the basis for comparisons in GitContext. You can view the entire timeline of revisions in the history bar, quickly seeing how a pull request has evolved in response to reviews. The history bar also allows you to select any two revisions to see the differences between them, making it easy to track changes from review to review rather than commit to commit. We even visually showcase how far individual participants have reviewed code down to the file level.

History Mode Setting^New

We're excited to introduce more control over how pull request history is tracked. While we believe revisions are the optimal way to review code, we understand that some workflows may require greater control. To accommodate different use cases, we've added a "History Mode" setting for individual pull requests. You can choose between:

• Revisions (default): GitContext will track revisions as reviews are submitted, simplifying your pull request history into intelligent breakpoints for streamlined code reviews.
• Commits: The history bar will show each commit as a potential comparison point, allowing reviewers to examine changes from commit to commit.

Users can switch between these modes at any point during a pull request’s lifecycle according to their needs. We are excited to offer this new level of flexibility in GitContext, helping you tailor the review process to best suit your workflow.