Source Control

Source Control is a tool in the right panel, scoped to the active workspace’s checkout. Show Source Control (Mod+Shift+G) opens it, and Mod+Alt+B shows or hides the panel; Mod is ⌘ on macOS and Ctrl on Windows and Linux. It refreshes as files change.

Without Git, the tool shows Source Control Unavailable. In a plain folder project, right-click a repository folder in Explorer and choose Use As Source Control Root.

The Title Row#

• The AI Assist button (Generate commit message with AI) drafts a message from the staged changes while AI Assist is on.
• All Changes opens every change in one diff tab.
• Show Flat List and Show Tree switch between full paths and a folder tree.
• Show All Changes and Group By Staged State switch between one Changes list and Staged, Unstaged, and Untracked sections.
• Search Files filters by path, Collapse All folds the list, and Refresh reloads it.

The row keeps its right end in view: at the default panel width the first buttons, AI Assist included, are hidden. Widen the panel or scroll the row with the mouse wheel.

Committing And Syncing#

Type in the Message field or generate one; a generated message never overwrites your edits. Its agent and instructions live under Settings → AI Assist → Commit Messages (see AI Assist). The microphone in the field (Start Dictation) needs Enable AI Dictation under Settings → AI Dictation.

The large button runs the next sensible step, in this order:

1. Commit, when changes are staged, a message is typed, and nothing conflicts.
2. Fetch, while the repository has conflicts.
3. Publish Branch, when the branch has no upstream; it pushes to origin.
4. Sync (pull, then push) when ahead and behind, else Pull when behind or Push when ahead.
5. Stage All when files are unstaged or untracked, otherwise Fetch.

Its chevron, Source Control Actions, lists Commit, Commit & Push, Commit & Sync, Commit Amend, Stage All, Unstage All, Discard All, Fetch, Pull, Push, Sync, Publish Branch, Stash, and Stash Pop. The commit entries use the text in the message field. Commit Amend folds the staged changes into the last commit and opens Amend Commit to edit its message. Stash saves changes to tracked files and leaves untracked files alone; Stash Pop asks which stash to apply.

Branches#

The row under the button shows the branch, its upstream, ahead and behind counts, and conflicts. Click the branch (Switch Branch) to search local and remote branches; picking a remote one creates a local tracking branch. Create Branch starts a branch at the current commit and keeps your uncommitted changes. A switch that would overwrite local changes is refused. On a workspace that uses the project folder itself, Alera first asks Change Shared Branch, since every workspace on that folder follows.

Staging And Discarding#

Each file shows its status letter and line counts. Stage, Unstage, and Discard act on a file, a folder in tree view, or a section header. Right-click a file for Open File, Comment on Diff, and Reveal in Explorer, or drag it onto a terminal to paste its path. Discard always asks first and only touches unstaged and untracked changes.

Diffs#

Clicking a file opens its diff in a preview tab; double-click keeps it, and Mod+click uses the other panel. An open file offers View Diff too. Text diffs are unified. Images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP, ICO) show Before and After side by side; other binary files and untracked files over 256 KB are not previewed, and very long diffs are truncated.

A changed submodule expands to list its own changes, read-only. When all its changes are inside it, the row reads Inside: manage them in the submodule.

Commits#

The Commits section at the bottom opens on demand. It graphs the latest 50 commits of your branch and its upstream and marks Incoming Changes and Outgoing Changes where they diverge. Click a commit for its author, date, and files; a file opens its diff and Open All Changes opens the whole commit. Commit Actions copies the hash or message.

Comments For An Agent#

Right-click or long-press a line in any diff tab, or use Comment on Diff, then describe the change and choose Add Comment. Comments collect in a bar above the file list and diff tabs. Send to Agent opens Send Comments to Agent: pick one of the Running Agents or a profile under New Tab, and all comments go as one prompt with their files and lines. Nothing is posted to your forge. Unsent comments do not survive an app restart.

Toasts#

Actions confirm in a toast such as “Committed”, “Branch published”, or “Switched to main”. Failures show the reason: “Nothing to commit.”, “Cannot push from detached HEAD.”, “Remote origin was not found.”, “Configure Git user.name and user.email before committing.”, or git’s own message.

Limits#

• Fetch, pull, and push run git with your credential helper and cannot answer a password prompt, so keep credentials in a helper or your SSH agent.
• Commits are written by Alera’s built-in Git library: hooks such as pre-commit do not run and commits are not signed. Commit from a terminal when you need either.
• There is no conflict editor. Resolve conflicts in a terminal or hand them to an agent.
• For a workspace on a remote host, everything runs on that host.