See the first release version of every line of code, inline in your editor.
git blame tells you who last touched a line. ShipLens tells you which release first shipped that line to users.
The status bar quietly answers the question:
"I'm looking at this line — when did it actually go out the door?"
Features (v0.1)
- A single status-bar item that updates as you move the cursor:
🚢 v1.2.0. - Tooltip with commit SHA, message, author, and the tag's date.
- Configurable tag include/exclude globs (defaults skip
*-rc*,*-beta*, etc.). - Multi-root workspace aware; each file is resolved against its own repo.
- Graceful degradation:
- Uncommitted — the line has working-tree changes.
- Unreleased — the commit exists but no release tag contains it.
- Limited history — the repo is a shallow clone; we won't guess.
How it knows
ShipLens shows a tag only when (1) git blame identifies the commit that owns the line, (2) git tag --contains finds tags that include that commit, and (3) one tag is the earliest non-pre-release among them, sorted by the committer date of the commit each tag points to.
Steps 1 and 2 are pure git — the same machinery that powers GitLens, GitHub blame, and git rev-list. Step 3 is configurable via shiplens.tagInclude / shiplens.tagExclude (defaults exclude *-rc*, *-beta*, etc.).
When the assumption breaks, ShipLens says so explicitly — Uncommitted (working-tree edit), Unreleased (no containing tag yet), or Limited history (shallow clone). It never guesses.
Configuration
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
shiplens.tagInclude |
* |
Glob passed to git tag --contains. |
shiplens.tagExclude |
["*-rc*", "*-beta*", "*-alpha*", "*-pre*", "*-dev*", "*-snapshot*", "rescue/*"] |
Patterns dropped after the include filter. |
shiplens.sortBy |
committerDate |
How candidate tags are ordered. v0.1 only implements committerDate. |
shiplens.debounceMs |
150 |
Delay between cursor movement and the next query. |
shiplens.followRenames |
false |
Pass --follow to git blame. |
shiplens.statusBar.alignment |
right |
Status bar position. |
Use it from the CLI / agent
ShipLens also distributes a Cursor Agent Skill that gives CLI agents (Cursor CLI, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI) the same first-release lookup logic as this extension. Useful when you're not in the editor but still want to ask "which release first shipped line N of file F?". Install via cp -r skills/shiplens ~/.cursor/skills/ from a clone of the ShipLens repo.
Roadmap
Near-term (v0.2): click status-bar to open the tag page on GitHub/GitLab, multi-line selection (earliest/latest tag across the range), monorepo tag-prefix routing, and a background tag-DAG index for instant lookups on large repos.
Longer-term: Issue/PR linking via commit message references, a file-level release timeline view, CI/CD signal hookup, JetBrains plugin reusing the same core, and optional GitLens data-source integration.
License
MIT.