Sharing Annotations Across Developers Using Git

[viviane9533]

Hi @JacquesGariepy

We're really enjoying exploring the extension and all the cool features it comes with!
We're evaluating Out-of-Code Insights for a team collaboration project and wanted to share annotation by committing to the json file to our repository.

We've run into an issue when annotations are created by one developer, committed to a branch, and pushed to a remote branch. Then another developer pulls the same branch onto their local workspace. The issue is the fileUri for those annotations point to the first developer's local machine path so the annotations don't show up anchored to a specific line on this new workspace.
The error reads "Error executing command navigate: cannot open file... Unable to read file... Unable to resolve nonexistent file" .

Is sharing annotation.json through Git across multiple workstations officially supported?
Is there a way for teams with different local workspace paths to share annotations?

Thank you

[JacquesGariepy]

Thank you, Viviane. I really appreciate hearing that the extension is useful.
Feel free to open PRs anytime if you think something could help move the tool forward, contributions are always welcome.

I’ll work on your comment when I’m back from vacation, around August 10.

If you’re comfortable sharing which company is using the extension, feel free to send it privately (jacques.gariepy@outlook.com). It helps me better understand real-world usage, but only if you’re okay with it.

Thanks again for the feedback, it really helps shape the next improvements.

[JacquesGariepy]

Hi @viviane9533, thanks for the detailed report, you found a real gap. Sharing .out-of-code-insights/annotations.json through Git is an intended workflow, but until now each fileUri recorded the author's absolute path, which is exactly why navigate failed with "Unable to resolve nonexistent file" on a teammate's machine.

This is fixed in v1.4.5 (just released): every annotation already stores its workspace-relative path, and the extension now rebases any fileUri that does not live under your workspace root onto your own workspace whenever annotations load, at activation, when the file changes on disk (e.g. after git pull while VS Code is open), and when pulling from the team sync server. No format or workflow change needed on your side; files already committed by teammates will simply start resolving.

Two notes for team usage:

• The file on disk still records the absolute URIs of whoever saved last, so you may see fileUri churn in diffs. Functionality no longer depends on those values; fully relative persistence is a schema change tracked separately.
• Teammates should open the same folder as the workspace root (your repo root), since annotations resolve by workspace-relative path.

So to answer directly: yes, sharing annotations.json through Git across workstations is officially supported as of v1.4.5. Release notes: https://github.com/JacquesGariepy/out-of-code-insights/blob/main/docs/CHANGELOG-1.4.5.md