Fossil in Visual Studio: finally without a command line next to it

I like Fossil. What bothered me: Visual Studio had nothing for it, so there was always a terminal sitting next to the IDE. That's why Fossil SCM now exists, a free extension for Visual Studio.

What it does

• Changes window: changed and unversioned files, a checkbox per file for the commit selection, commit message and commit button. Double-clicking starts fossil gdiff; the context menu offers revert, add, remove and show in Explorer.
• Fossil main menu, modelled after the Git menu: clone, open repository, update, pull, push, sync, new branch and the web UI.
• Repository window: list, switch and create branches, browse the history, edit the remote URL and fossil settings directly.
• English and German user interface.

It works with solutions and with folders opened via File > Open > Folder.

The rules behind it

Fossil stays the source of truth; the extension is fails, you see its message word for word. The extension never quietly adds --allow-fork or --force.

The little detour along the way

The first version was a classic VSSDK package. Under Visual Studio 2026 it installed and loaded, but the menu entry never showed up. I never found out why. So I moved everything to the new VisualStudio.Extensibility model, with its own process and .NET 8. It has been running ever since.

I deliberately left out the classic source control provider interface. It dates from the SourceSafe era and thinks in exclusive checkouts, which doesn't fit a distributed system. The only gain would have been status icons in Solution Explorer.

What you need

• Visual Studio 2022 17.14 or later (tested with Visual Studio 2026)
• fossil.exe in your PATH, or its path set under Tools > Options > Fossil

If a server requires a password, it goes into the URL (https://user:password@host/repo), because Fossil can't ask for it from inside Visual Studio.

The extension doesn't resolve merge conflicts, and it doesn't cover tickets or the wiki. That's what fossil ui is for, and you can start it right from the menu.

Fossil SCM on the Visual Studio Marketplace (free, MIT licensed)