Github + VSC - badges for new commits?

Question

I am the repo owner and have recently added 3 more collaborators to the project, all of which are now committing changes to the code. Since they are designated as collaborators, they are essentially exempt from approvals, meaning their code is meant to be automatically approved and committed, which so far is working fine.

Where things get weird now is that I am unable to see any file change badges in my VSC Source Control tab. It is my understanding (and please correct me if I am wrong) that if one of my collaborators commits new code (= outdating my local code), VSC Source Control would show me a badge and the files that were updated. Correct?

I now find myself constantly checking the Github repo website for any recent changes so I can manually run git pull in order to get the latest code, which pretty much defeats the purpose of having source control.

So what my question boils down to is this:

• is the above described behaviour considered normal when using VSC + Github?
• is there a way for me to receive badges/notifications whenever a commit has been issued, alerting me to update my code and making me aware of which files were changed?

Running latest VSC for MAC with the default Source Control tab that is linked to my repo.

Appreciate any help on this, thank you.

Answer 1

First, you would see anything only if new commits are done on the same remote branch as the local one you are working.

In your case, if you are working on main, and the collaborator's PRs are approved and merged to main, then you would see changes.

As noted for VSCode Remotes, you need to set git.autofetch to true:

  // When set to true, commits will automatically be fetched from the default remote of the current Git repository. Setting to `all` will fetch from all remotes.
  "git.autofetch": false,

  // Duration in seconds between each automatic git fetch, when `git.autofetch` is enabled.
  "git.autofetchPeriod": 180,