Git branch management in VS Code, the way JetBrains IDEs do it: one panel, right-click actions, smart pulls that just work — no terminal required.

The Branch panel

Open it from the Activity Bar. Branches are split into two groups:

Local — your local branches, current one marked with a checkmark
Remote — everything on origin (or any other remote)

Branches that are ahead/behind their upstream show ↑/↓ counts and a colored icon, so you can tell at a glance who needs a push or a pull. The panel refreshes itself whenever you commit, checkout, or fetch from the terminal — no manual refresh needed.

The toolbar has one button, Fetch All, which fetches every remote and prunes branches deleted on the server.

What you can do

Right-click any local branch:

Checkout — switch to it
Push — push it and set up tracking, in one click
Pull — bring in upstream changes. Works even if the branch isn't checked out (it fast-forwards the ref in place); if you're on it, it pulls normally
Rename
Delete — removes the branch after a confirmation

Right-click any remote branch:

New Branch from Selected — create and check out a new local branch starting from it
Checkout — creates a local branch tracking it
Pull into Current Branch (Merge / Rebase) — the one for "my branch forked from main, and main has moved on." Bring those changes into your current branch without switching anywhere
Delete Remote Branch

main, master, and develop are treated as protected: no rename or delete offered on them.

Smart pulls

Got uncommitted changes when you pull? You don't need to stash them yourself first. Simple Git stashes them for you, runs the pull, and pops them back automatically — the same "smart" behavior JetBrains IDEs are known for. If your stashed changes and the incoming update happen to touch the exact same lines, you'll get the usual conflict picker to sort it out (see below) instead of a cryptic git error.

Resolving conflicts

Whenever a pull, merge, rebase, or auto-stash produces conflicts, a picker pops up automatically listing every conflicted file:

Click a file to open VS Code's built-in 3-way merge editor. The picker steps aside while you work and comes back the moment you close the editor tab.
Once every file is resolved, you're prompted to continue or abort — no need to remember the right git incantation.
Abort at any point to back out cleanly.

If you try to switch branches while a merge or rebase is stuck with unresolved conflicts, you'll be offered to abort it and check out anyway, instead of just hitting an error.