Prism.
See the branches. Understand the change.
Visual branch planning and Azure DevOps pull requests, inside VS Code. See integration evidence before preparing the next change.
What it does.
- Branch Flow graph with explicit integration evidence
- Editable Azure DevOps pull request creation
- Local graph files, undo and keyboard controls
- Optional AI summaries; credentials in SecretStorage
The problem.
Branch relationships, integration evidence and pull request creation often live in separate tools. Switching context makes it harder to distinguish an intended propagation plan from verified Git state.
The solution.
Prism brings a branch planning canvas and PR Creator into VS Code. Graph relationships carry explicit evidence states; an editable PR action is a separate, deliberate operation.
Product experience.
Add remote branches to a graph, connect source and target, and inspect analysis. Save a local .branchflow.json plan, revalidate it later, or open a prefilled PR Creator. AI assistance is optional.
Engineering decisions.
Filesystem, authenticated HTTP and Git operations remain in the extension host. Webviews receive presence flags rather than credentials. Graph imports and messages use runtime schemas and limits; PATs and provider keys use VS Code SecretStorage.
Challenges & trade-offs.
A clean merge does not establish a clean rebase. Missing objects or unsuitable clones produce an inconclusive state instead of a success claim. Branch Flow does not merge, push, or rebase remote branches.
Clear boundaries.
Connected parts.
- 01VS Code webview
- 02Validated message bridge
- 03Extension host
- 04Azure API & optional local Git
The honest edges.
Azure account permissions govern live operations. Optional AI sends selected context to the configured provider. The historical source URL is retained from Azure DevOps PR Helper.
Capabilities are grounded in repository documentation and implementation. No adoption figures or performance improvements are inferred.