Commit Button

VS Code extension that adds a sparkle button to the Source Control title bar. The button generates a commit message via your chosen AI provider and writes it to the commit input box.

Pick the provider in Settings:

• Claude Code - runs claude -p --no-session-persistence <prompt>
• OpenAI Codex - runs codex exec --skip-git-repo-check --ephemeral <prompt>
• GitHub Copilot - delegates to the built-in github.copilot.git.generateCommitMessage

Both Claude and Codex run "anonymous" - the prompt + response are not saved to ~/.claude/projects/ or ~/.codex/sessions/. Each commit-btn invocation is fully ephemeral.

Features

• Auto staged / unstaged: uses staged diff if anything is staged, otherwise falls back to unstaged.
• Recent commits as style reference: last N commit messages are passed to the model so its output matches your repo's style.
• Per-repo rules: each repo has its own rules file living outside the repo at ~/.config/vscode-commit-btn/rules/<repo-folder-name>.md (configurable via commitBtn.rulesDir). Cannot be accidentally committed. Run Commit Button: Edit Repo Rules from the command palette to open/create it.

Prompt placeholders

Available in commitBtn.promptTemplate and in any .commit-rules.md that uses override mode:

Placeholder	Replaced with
{{diff}}	the diff being committed
{{diffSource}}	staged or unstaged
{{branch}}	current branch name
{{recentCommits}}	last N commit messages, separated by ---, prefixed with a header. Empty if recentCommitCount is 0 or the repo has no commits.
{{repoRules}}	contents of the per-repo rules file prefixed with a header. Empty if file is missing.

Per-repo examples

Run Commit Button: Edit Repo Rules from the command palette - the extension creates ~/.config/vscode-commit-btn/rules/<repo-folder-name>.md if missing and opens it.

For a repo named kafka-migrations, the file is ~/.config/vscode-commit-btn/rules/kafka-migrations.md. Examples of what to put inside:

Russian commits:

Write the commit message in Russian.

Jira-style ticket IDs from branch names like feature/CORE-1234-foo:

- Extract the ticket ID (CORE-XXXX) from the branch name and put it as a prefix: "CORE-1234: short summary".
- If the branch has no ticket ID, omit the prefix.

Conventional commits:

Use conventional commits: feat:, fix:, chore:, docs:, refactor:, test:.
Pick the type that matches the diff.

Full override - file replaces the entire prompt:

<!-- mode: override -->
Write a short commit message in Russian. Branch: {{branch}}

Recent commits:
{{recentCommits}}

Diff:
{{diff}}

Settings

Setting	Default	Notes
commitBtn.provider	claude	claude / codex / copilot
commitBtn.claude.command	claude	binary path
commitBtn.claude.args	["-p", "--no-session-persistence"]	prompt appended as last positional arg
commitBtn.claude.model	""	--model <value> appended if non-empty (e.g. sonnet, opus)
commitBtn.codex.command	codex	binary path
commitBtn.codex.args	["exec", "--skip-git-repo-check", "--ephemeral"]
commitBtn.codex.model	""	-m <value> appended if non-empty
commitBtn.codex.reasoningEffort	high	-c model_reasoning_effort=<value> appended
commitBtn.promptTemplate	conventional-commit prompt with all placeholders	multiline editor in Settings UI
commitBtn.recentCommitCount	10	0 disables
commitBtn.rulesDir	~/.config/vscode-commit-btn/rules	directory for per-repo rules files (key = repo folder name)
commitBtn.timeoutMs	120000

Build and install

npm install
npm run compile
npx --yes @vscode/vsce package --allow-missing-repository
code --install-extension commit-btn-0.0.1.vsix --force

Or press F5 in this folder for an Extension Development Host.

For full immersion: ditch Copilot

Modern VS Code ships with GitHub Copilot Chat as a built-in extension that you didn't install yourself. It contributes its own sparkle button to the SCM input box, which ends up sitting next to ours as a confusing dropdown. There is no Copilot setting and no VS Code right-click that reliably hides just that button.

The cleanest fix is to disable the whole built-in Copilot Chat extension:

1. Ctrl+Shift+X (Extensions view)
2. Search: @builtin copilot
3. Find "GitHub Copilot Chat" (or "Copilot Chat") - the one marked as built-in
4. Cog icon → Disable → reload window

After that:

• Copilot's sparkle next to the commit input disappears
• Our button shows alone, no dropdown shenanigans
• Copilot's chat panel goes away from the sidebar
• No more "Sign in to GitHub Copilot" popups
• ~100MB RAM freed from the Copilot host process

If you ever want it back, same place → Enable. Notably this only matters if you don't actually pay for / use Copilot - if you do, leave it on and live with the dropdown.

Notes

• The prompt is passed as a positional argv via execFile, no shell, no escaping needed.
• For copilot provider we just forward to their command - our prompt, recent-commits, and repo rules are not used in that mode (no API to inject them).
• Multi-root workspace: when you click the sparkle inside a specific repo's SCM section, the extension uses that repo. Falls back to a QuickPick if the active repo is ambiguous.