Allow customizing Git Blame date formatting

Open
#322,340 0 comments 1 reaction 1 assignee View on GitHub

@lszomoru is already working on this.

Since Jun 22, 2026.

Assessment

This issue has not been assessed yet.

Description

The built-in Git Blame editor decoration allows customizing the template, but not the formatting of date values.

For example:

{ "git.blame.editorDecoration.template": "${authorName} (${authorDate})" }

The value of ${authorDate} is generated using the runtime locale and formatting, which cannot be customized.

Depending on the selected locale, this may produce undesirable output (for example, localized relative time strings or date formats that don't match the user's preference).

Proposed solution

Allow configuring the formatting of date variables independently from the template.

Some possible approaches:

Add settings such as:

git.blame.dateFormat
git.blame.relativeDateStyle
Support formatting options in template variables, for example:
${authorDate:yyyy-MM-dd}
${authorDate:short}
${authorDateAgo:short}

Why

Many developers prefer a consistent date format regardless of the UI locale, or would like to choose between different relative date styles without changing the entire application locale.

This would make the built-in Git Blame decoration significantly more flexible while keeping the existing template mechanism.

Image Image
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
193k
Forks
42.9k
PR metrics pending

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from microsoft/vscode

All issues in microsoft/vscode

Similar issues

More TypeScript issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.