Add setting to show commit SHAs in tree

[James Miller (jameswilmiller)]

I wasn't sure whether community contributions were being accepted but I took the liberty of making the PR.

Summary:

Adds a new setting that displays abbreviated commit SHAs in the pull request commits tree.

When enabled, commit descriptions are shown in the following format:

49334c4 · 2 days ago

I went with this design decision because date will truncate before SHA which I believe is the more important
piece of information when reviewing the commits as a list. If you believe a different direction would be better feel free to comment.

The setting defaults to disabled, so the existing behaviour remains unchanged.

Changes:

• Added the githubPullRequests.showCommitShaInTree setting.
• Added localized text for the setting.
• Displayed the first seven characters of the commit SHA when the setting is enabled.
• Preserved the relative commit date when available.
• Refreshed the commits tree immediately when the setting changes.

Testing:

manually verified that:

• The setting is disabled by default.
• Enabling the setting displays the abbreviated commit SHA.
• Disabling the setting removes the SHA.
• The commits tree updates without reloading the window.
• Commits with a date display · .
• Commits without a date display only the short SHA when enabled.
• Existing commit-tree functionality continues to work.

No automated tests were added ( I wasn't sure whether this was required but I am happy to write some if needed ).

I have attached screenshots below,

Screenshots

Setting:

Disabled Setting:

Disabled Setting with no date:

Enabled Setting:

Enabled Setting with no date:

Fixes #8701

[James Miller (jameswilmiller)]

@microsoft-github-policy-service agree

[Copilot]

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

Suppressed comments (4)

src/view/treeNodes/commitNode.ts:51

• The description is computed once in the constructor, so toggling showCommitShaInTree may not update existing CommitNode instances even if the parent refreshes. To ensure the UI reflects the current setting, compute/update description inside getTreeItem() (or recompute on refresh) rather than only in the constructor.

		this.description = this._getDescription();
	}

	private _getDescription(): string | undefined {
		const date = this.commit.commit.author?.date ? dateFromNow(this.commit.commit.author.date) : undefined;
		if (!vscode.workspace.getConfiguration(PR_SETTINGS_NAMESPACE).get<boolean>(SHOW_COMMIT_SHA_IN_TREE, false)) {
			return date;
		}
		const shortSha = this.commit.sha.substring(0, 7);
		return date ? `${shortSha} · ${date}` : shortSha;

	}

src/view/treeNodes/commitsCategoryNode.ts:48

• Use the standard capitalization 'SHA' instead of 'Sha' in the log message.

				Logger.appendLine(`Commit Sha display setting has changed, refreshing Commits node`, PR_TREE);

package.nls.json:193

• This description string is missing a trailing period, which is inconsistent with nearby setting descriptions.

	"githubPullRequests.showCommitShaInTree.description": "Shows the abbreviated commit SHA in the tree view",

src/view/treeNodes/commitNode.ts:41

• The leading underscore is typically redundant on private methods in TypeScript and can be inconsistent with common conventions. Consider renaming to getDescription() (or computeDescription()) for clarity and consistency.

	private _getDescription(): string | undefined {