---
title: "File history, blame, and compare"
description: "Follow one file through time, attribute every line, and diff any two refs."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.gitlane.space/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# File history, blame, and compare

Three related views share one surface and one breadcrumb header, so you can
move between them without losing your place: **file history**, **blame**, and
**compare**.

## File history

Open any file's history to get its revisions newest-first. Selecting one
shows its diff alongside an inspector with:

- The short SHA, with **Copy SHA**
- The commit subject, author, and relative age
- **Open this commit** — jump the graph to it
- **Blame at this revision** — switch to blame as of that commit, not as of
  now

### Renames are followed

When a revision renamed the file, the inspector says so explicitly and names
the previous path. History continues through the rename rather than stopping
at the point the name changed — which is the usual reason a file appears to
have no history before a certain date.

### Deletions are marked

If the file was deleted, that revision is flagged as the deletion rather than
appearing as an ordinary change.

> **The revision count can be capped**
>
> The backend caps how far it walks. When it does, the header count shows a
> trailing `+` — `200+` means "at least 200, and the walk stopped there," not
> "exactly 200."

## Blame

Blame attributes every line to the commit that last changed it.

Lines are **grouped into runs** — consecutive lines from the same commit
share one gutter entry instead of repeating the SHA on every row — and each
commit gets a deterministic colour drawn from the same lane palette as the
commit graph, so a blame view reads like the graph does. Ages are compact in
the gutter (`2d`, `3wk`, `6mo`).

Select a line to inspect the commit behind it, and jump from there into the
graph.

**Limits.** Blame isn't available for binary files, and GitLane says so
rather than rendering noise. Very large files are capped: you get the first
N lines with a banner telling you the view is truncated.

## Compare

Compare diffs any two refs. Pick a scope:

| Scope | Compares |
| --- | --- |
| **Upstream** | Your branch against its upstream |
| **Branch** | Two branches |
| **Commit** | Two commits |
| **Working** | The working tree against a ref |

You get a range bar naming both ends — with a swap control, for when you
picked them the wrong way round — a filterable list of changed files, and the
selected file's diff in the same renderer used everywhere else.

Very large compare results are bounded: the file list renders up to a cap so
a huge range doesn't stall the view. Use the path filter to narrow it.

## Getting here

File history and blame open from a file in the changes panel, a commit's file
list, or the in-repository file browser. Compare opens from the graph — pick
two refs and compare them.

> **Tip**
>
> All three views read through libgit2, not by shelling out. They're fast
> enough to use casually, and they structurally can't modify the repository.
> [Architecture →](/reference/architecture)

Source: https://docs.gitlane.space/guides/file-history/index.mdx