Developers rely on version control to review changes before committing. However, IntelliJ-based IDEs have a significant limitation: after committing code, all change indicators in version control and line status annotations disappear completely. Since feature branches typically contain multiple commits, this makes it difficult to track accumulated changes over time. This plugin addresses that problem by making committed changes visible again.

Create custom "scopes" for any Git reference—branch, tag, or commit hash. Each defined scope appears as a selectable tab in the Git Scope tool window. The currently selected scope visualizes changes through:

• Scope tree diff — Shows all modified files in the Git Scope tool window
• File colors — Files highlighted in editor tabs and project window according to the Git Scope status (added, modified, deleted, ...)
• Editor line status — Displays change markers in the editor gutter for open files
• Custom scope — Enables filtered search, replace, and inspection operations
• Status bar widget — Displays the current scope selection

The plugin will add a new tool window named Git Scope:

By default, it will appear as a secondary tool window on the left side, but you can move it anywhere to suit your workflow. Plugin settings are available under Settings → Tools → Git Scope.

Clicking the button opens the Git Scope window:

New Scope:

To add a new scope, click the "+" tab on the Git Scope panel:

In the "New*" tab you get a few different options to define the scope:

1. Select either a local or remote branch in the current repo. If the repo contains sub-repos, all repos will be listed with the main repo being the first repo in the list.
2. Alternatively, you can manually type the branch, tag or git reference and press Enter. A git reference can be any valid git reference such as HEAD~2, <long hash>, <short hash>, ...
3. If you want to bind the scope to the common ancestor for HEAD and the current selected scope reference, you can check the common ancestor checkbox. This makes it possible to for example select master and your scope will be compared to the common ancestor of master and HEAD. And you are free to pull new changes onto master without affecting the scope.
4. If the list of branches is long, it can be filtered using the search box.

Change Browser:

Whenever the scope selection is done, the tab will turn into a "change browser" (similar to version control) that displays the current diff of the Git Scope. The change browser supports searching/filtering by file name using the built-in speed search — just start typing to narrow down the list.

The toolbar above the change list follows one rule: action icons that operate on the current selection (Diff, Select Opened File) stay on the left, and icons that change how the list is presented (Group By, Show Deleted Files, Show Untracked Files) are right-aligned:

Show Untracked Files and Show Deleted Files are per-project toggles — off by default — for whether untracked (unversioned) and locally deleted files show up in the Git Scope view. The initial value for newly opened projects can be changed under Settings → Tools → Git Scope (see Settings below); once a project has been opened, it keeps its own toggle state independent of that default.

Right click on any file will present a number of actions:

• Show Diff: Opens a diff window showing the diff of the selected file (s) <selected-scope>..working tree
• Show Diff in a New Tab: The same diff, opened as a regular editor tab instead of the diff window
• Show in Project: Highlight this file in the Project tool window
• Create Patch...: Opens a dialog to save the selected file (s) scope diff as a .patch file
• Copy as Patch to Clipboard: Copies the selected file (s) scope diff as a unified patch directly to the clipboard
• Rollback...: Rollback the selected files (s) to <selected-scope> version. Note that this will checkout the selected scope version of the file (s), and will in many cases leave you with a modified file that no longer show up in the Git Scope window since it is identical to the version pointed to by the scope. Commit the files using the standard Commit tool window.

Create Patch..., Copy as Patch to Clipboard, and Rollback... all apply to the current selection, so you can select multiple files (or all files via Ctrl+A) and the action will apply to all of them at once.

Line Status Gutter:

Git Scope uses its own plugin-native gutter rendering system to show scope-aware diff markers directly in the editor. This avoids the side-effects and interference with native IDE functionality that earlier versions of the plugin experienced when hooking into the IDE's own gutter system.

Note: The Git Scope gutter markers are only visible when the IDE setting Version Control → Confirmation → Highlight modified lines in gutter is enabled.

Each changed line is marked with a colored bar — inserted, modified, and deleted lines each get their own dedicated color (see Gutter colors and fading below) — relative to the selected Git Scope target. Clicking any marker opens a popup with the following actions:

• ↑ / ↓ — Navigate to the previous or next change
• ↺ — Rollback this change to the scope base version
• Diff — Open an inline diff showing exactly what changed
• Copy — Copy the original scope-base content to the clipboard

An overview stripe on the right-hand scrollbar provides a full-file summary of scope changes, making it easy to spot hotspots without scrolling.

The gutter markers can be positioned in two ways, controlled via Settings → Tools → Git Scope:

Merged mode (default) — Scope markers appear inline with the IDE's native gutter markers. Both sets of markers are visible at the same time:

Separate mode — Scope markers are rendered in a dedicated column to the left of the line numbers. This makes it immediately clear which changes are relative to the Git Scope target and which are uncommitted local changes shown by the IDE's native HEAD diff markers:

Gutter colors and fading — By default the scope markers use the same colors as the IDE's own change markers. To tell them apart:

• Custom colors: Set your own added/modified/deleted colors under Settings → Editor → Color Scheme → Git Scope (also reachable via the link in Settings → Tools → Git Scope). Each color inherits the IDE's matching change marker color until you turn inheriting off for it. Colors are stored per color scheme, so light and dark schemes can differ, and theme or color scheme plugins can define them too (GIT_SCOPE_ADDED_LINES_COLOR, GIT_SCOPE_MODIFIED_LINES_COLOR, GIT_SCOPE_DELETED_LINES_COLOR).
• Fading: Enable Fade Git Scope gutter markers in Settings → Tools → Git Scope to paint the scope markers semi-transparent (20–80% opacity), so they stand back from the IDE's HEAD markers while keeping their colors. Works in both merged and separate mode.

Reviewing a Scope (Keyboard Navigation):

Git Scope is well suited for reviewing an entire scope — walking through every change on a branch, tag or commit range the same way you would review a pull request, but directly in the editor with full language support (syntax highlighting, navigation, inspections).

To make this fast and mouse-free, the plugin adds four navigation actions plus a diff action. They ship without default shortcuts so they never clash with your keymap — assign your own under Settings → Keymap (search for "Git Scope"):

A typical review flow:

1. Select the scope you want to review in the Git Scope tool window.
2. Press Next Change repeatedly to step through every change, across all files, in order. The file being reviewed is automatically opened, the caret lands on each change, and the file is highlighted in the Git Scope tool window so you always know where you are.
3. When the gutter markers aren't enough to understand a change, press Show Diff to open the full side-by-side scope diff for that file. Close it with the standard Close Tab / Close Editor shortcut to jump back and keep moving.
4. Use Next/Previous Changed File to skip whole files when you only want a per-file overview.

Tip — enable the "Preview tab" feature to reduce tab clutter. When reviewing, each file you step into would normally open a new editor tab. If you enable IntelliJ's preview-tab feature (Settings → Editor → General → Editor Tabs → "Enable preview tab", or the "Open declaration source in the same tab" / preview toggle in the editor tabs settings), Git Scope opens each file in a single reused preview tab instead — so navigating through dozens of changed files leaves you with just one tab rather than dozens. Git Scope respects this setting: with it off, files open as normal (permanent) tabs; with it on, navigation reuses the preview tab.

Scope:

Adds a custom Scope (used to do inspections, search/replace, etc), i.e. search results are filtered by Git Scope.

READ: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/scopes.html

Status Bar Widget

To see the current selection of the Git Scope even when the tool window is not open, you can look at the status bar widget.

Rename Tab

The tab name is per default set to the selected scope reference. If the selected scope is a git hash, you can rename the scope tab name by right clicking on the tab and selecting "Rename Tab". Any renamed tab will show the original Git Scope reference as a tooltip. You can reset the tab name to the original Git Scope reference by right clicking on the tab and selecting "Reset Tab Name".

Scope tabs can be reordered either by dragging a tab to its new position, or with "Move Tab Left" / "Move Tab Right" from the same context menu. Over Remote Development only the context menu actions are available — the IntelliJ Platform does not support drag-and-drop tab reordering in remote mode.

Use Commit as Git Scope

In the Git panel, you can right-click on any commit and select "Use Commit as Git Scope" to automatically add the commit as a new Git Scope.

Project Panel Filter

The Project tool window can be filtered to show only files that are part of the current Git scope. When this filter is enabled, the IDE controls the Project view’s lifecycle and updates. As a result, the Project tool window might not immediately reflect changes to the Git scope.

Select In

Git Scope appears in the Select In dialog, so you can locate any file directly in the Git Scope tool window from Select In.

The Git Scope window itself also has the "Select Opened File" action button, so you can highlight the currently opened editor file directly in the Git Scope tool window (if the file is part of the current selected scope):

Settings

Plugin settings are available under Settings → Tools → Git Scope:

The following review-navigation actions are also added, but ship without default shortcuts — assign your own under Settings → Keymap (search for "Git Scope"). See Reviewing a Scope (Keyboard Navigation) above for the recommended workflow:

Build (build/distributions)

./gradlew buildPlugin

Run/debug plugin

./gradlew runIde

Verify

./gradlew verifyPlugin