The three-pane editor
Ours, theirs, and the result you are writing between them.
A conflicted file opens in three panes:
- Left — ours. The version on the branch you are on.
- Middle — the result. What the file will be. This is the editable one.
- Right — theirs. The version being brought in.
For each conflicted hunk you can take ours, take theirs, take Ours, then Theirs or Theirs, then Ours when the answer is both, or edit the middle pane directly. The result is a file you are writing, not a choice between two fixed options.
The toolbar’s Use Ours and Use Theirs do the same for the whole file at once, and a counter beside them says how many choices are left.
Where the merge base is
Git compares three things to work out a conflict: your version, their version, and the common ancestor both came from. Innesta uses that ancestor to reason about each hunk — it is how it can tell that only one side changed something — but it does not show it as a fourth pane.
Three panes is a decision about what is useful, not a limitation. A fourth column of the file as it was before either of you touched it costs a quarter of the width, and the question it answers — “which side actually changed this?” — is the one Resolve Simple Conflicts has already answered by settling those hunks for you.
When you have finished a file
Mark Resolved writes the result and stages it in one step — there is no
separate git add to remember. The file leaves the conflicted group and joins
the staged ones.
The button stays disabled until the file is actually finished, and the badge next to it says why: while conflict markers are still in the text, while choices are still outstanding, and Ready to stage when neither is true. Editing the result by hand counts as finishing it, so a file you have simply rewritten can be marked resolved without working through the hunks.
Taking a whole side is the exception: Use Ours and Use Theirs for the entire file replace it and stage it themselves.