GitHub PR Reverse Comments

Read GitHub Pull Request conversations newest comment first.

GitHub shows PR comments oldest-first, so on long-running PRs you have to scroll to the bottom every time you open the page just to see what's new. This extension flips the order. The PR description still sits at the top where you'd expect it; only the conversation timeline gets reversed.

A small button in the bottom-right of every PR page lets you flip between Newest first and Oldest first. Your choice is remembered across page loads. When a PR has status checks, an indicator at the top of the conversation shows their overall state and jumps to the checks box.

Works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, any other Chromium browser, and Firefox 142+.

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Install

Chrome / Edge / Brave (any Chromium browser)

1. Download this repository — either git clone it or click the green Code button on GitHub and Download ZIP, then unzip it somewhere permanent (the browser keeps reading the files from disk).
2. Open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions, brave://extensions).
3. Toggle Developer mode on in the top-right corner.
4. Click Load unpacked and select the github-pr-reverse-comments folder.
5. Open any GitHub Pull Request — you should see a blue ↓ Newest first button in the bottom-right corner, and the newest comment will be at the top of the timeline.

Firefox

Firefox is stricter than Chrome about installing extensions from outside its official add-on store. You have two paths:

Quick: temporary install (resets when you quit Firefox)

1. Go to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox.
2. Click Load Temporary Add-on….
3. Pick the manifest.json file inside the extension folder.

The extension works until you close Firefox.

Permanent: install the signed .xpi from the Releases page

1. Go to the latest release.
2. Download the file ending in .xpi (e.g. github-pr-reverse-comments-1.1.0.xpi).
3. Drag the downloaded .xpi into a Firefox window. Firefox will show a permission prompt — click Add to install it permanently.

The .xpi is signed by Mozilla, so Firefox treats it the same way it would treat anything installed from addons.mozilla.org.

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How to use it

Once it's installed, you don't have to do anything. Open any Pull Request on github.com and:

• Newest comment is at the top of the conversation.
• The PR description stays where it always was, above the timeline.
• If the PR has status checks, a status indicator near the top shows their overall state (passing / failing / running). Click it to jump to the checks box.
• The ↓ Newest first button in the bottom-right corner toggles the order. Click it to switch to oldest-first; click again to switch back.
• Your preference is saved automatically and applies to every PR you visit.

That's it. No setup, no account, no options page to dig through.

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What it does (and doesn't) collect

Nothing leaves your browser. The only thing the extension stores is a single preference value — either "newest" or "oldest" — saved locally on your machine. There are no analytics, no network requests, no tracking.

The full list of permissions:

• storage — to remember whether you want newest-first or oldest-first.
• access to github.com pull request pages — to read and re-order the comments visible in the tab. It does not read any other tabs.

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Troubleshooting

The button doesn't appear. Make sure you're on a Pull Request page (URL looks like https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123). The extension only runs on PR pages, not on issues, code views, or the repo home.

The button appears but clicking it doesn't change anything. GitHub has likely shipped a new design variant whose timeline/commit containers the extension doesn't recognize yet — please open an issue with the PR URL so the selectors can be updated.

I clicked the button and now I'm stuck on oldest-first. Click it again to flip back, or open the extension's popup (toolbar icon) and pick Newest first.

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Building / contributing

There is no build step for the shipped extension — the browser runs the source files in this repo as-is. To make a change, edit the source, reload the extension at chrome://extensions (or re-install the temporary add-on in Firefox), and refresh a PR page.

File	Purpose
manifest.json	Extension definition (Manifest V3, Chrome + Firefox)
constants.js	Shared constants (storage key, order values)
reorder.js	Pure DOM-reordering helpers (unit-tested)
content.js	Runs on PR pages; reorders comments, draws the toggle
background.js	Keeps the toolbar icon in sync with the current tab
popup.html	Toolbar popup UI
popup.js	Popup behavior; reads/writes saved preference

Dev tooling (optional)

Linting, formatting, and tests use Node and are not required to run the extension — they only help when contributing.

npm install      # install dev dependencies
npm run lint     # ESLint
npm run format   # Prettier (writes)
npm test         # Vitest unit tests for reorder.js
npm run build    # produce the .zip / .xpi (version read from manifest.json)

Pull requests welcome.