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GitLens 17.0 delivers a transformative update that revolutionizes Git workflows directly within Visual Studio Code. This release introduces GitKraken AI, native Bitbucket integration, and advanced multi-commit capabilities designed to eliminate friction points throughout your development process.

We recently started the Public Preview for a ground up rewrite of the GitKraken CLI. You might be wondering, “why?” We needed to rapidly iterate on a brand new idea, the “Work Item”. We also learned a lot from the previous iterations and realized a fresh start could help us optimize the user experience around the most precious resource, time.

Software development is changing fast, and here at GitKraken, we’re excited to be at the forefront. We’re entering a new era—one where AI is helping developers rather than trying to replace them. Our goal is to put that power to work for developers—embedded in your workflows, on your terms. We’ve been listening closely to feedback from our community—developers, team leads, engineering managers, and our enterprise customers.

GitKraken On-Premise customers, we’ve got exciting news! The powerful Launchpad feature, previously available only in GitKraken Cloud, is now making its way to your self-hosted environment. This update brings a simplified, efficient, and fully local way to start your day informed—helping you stay on top of your Git activity without relying on external cloud services.

Merge conflicts can derail your workflow at the worst possible moment. You’re making progress, ready to push your changes, and then suddenly—you hit a conflict. Now you have to stop, figure out what changed, track down a teammate, and resolve the issue before moving forward. It’s frustrating, time-consuming, and disrupts your momentum.

Velocity isn’t just about how fast developers write code—it’s about how efficiently that code moves from idea to production. Yet many teams struggle with an invisible bottleneck: inconsistent workflows. Without clear, standardized processes, teams hit avoidable roadblocks that slow them down in ways that aren’t always obvious. PRs linger in review, merge conflicts become routine, and onboarding a new developer feels like an unwritten scavenger hunt. The worst part?

Every development team has a workflow. But if it’s not standardized, it’s quietly draining time, energy, and productivity—without you even realizing it. A lack of consistent processes in branching, PRs, code reviews, and deployments doesn’t just create friction—it’s a silent tax on your entire team. And the cost? Easily 20+ hours per developer per month spent fixing avoidable issues instead of shipping great code.

Today, we’re excited to share the launch of GitKraken Automations, the latest addition to the GitKraken DevEx Platform. Automations is designed to help your team streamline code workflows, enforce best practices, and maintain consistency across your development processes—all while reducing manual effort and common frustrations. This launch represents an important step forward in our ongoing mission: simplifying Git workflows and empowering developers to focus on what they do best.

Programming is an art and a science, and while we often focus on things like performance and integrations, there’s something else that deserves attention—aesthetics. Okay, maybe not just as crucial. But the way our tools look and feel can impact productivity and comfort. A well-chosen Visual Studio Code (VS Code) theme isn’t just about style—it enhances readability, reduces eye strain, and makes long coding sessions more enjoyable.

We’ve all been there: working a feature that spans multiple Git repositories, doing your best to coordinate pull requests and save the reviewers from “review-hell” as they try to piece together how everything fits across the repositories… When a change impacts more than one microservice, the coordination can become a mess of disconnected PRs spanning many repos, each dependent on the other to avoid breaking something critical.