6 git-add - Add file contents to the index
10 'git-add' [-n] [-v] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [-u] [--] <file>...
14 This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
15 index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
17 The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
18 is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit. Thus
19 after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
20 the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
21 modified files to the index.
23 This command can be performed multiple times before a commit. It only
24 adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
25 run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
26 you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
28 The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
29 files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
31 The 'add' command can be used to add ignored files with `-f` (force)
32 option, but they have to be explicitly and exactly specified from the
33 command line. File globbing and recursive behaviour do not add ignored
36 Please see gitlink:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
43 Files to add content from. Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
44 be given to add all matching files. Also a
45 leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
46 and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
47 directory, recursively.
50 Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
56 Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
59 Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
63 Update only files that git already knows about. This is similar
64 to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
65 except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
66 command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files are
70 This option can be used to separate command-line options from
71 the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
72 for command-line options).
78 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
79 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
80 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
81 those in info/exclude. See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
86 git-add Documentation/\\*.txt::
88 Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation`
89 directory and its subdirectories.
91 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
92 example; this lets the command to include the files from
93 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
97 Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts.
98 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk
99 (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not
100 consider `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
104 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
105 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
106 interactive command loop.
108 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
109 gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends
110 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
111 and type return, like this:
115 1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
116 5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
120 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
123 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
127 This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
128 committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
129 working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
130 "git commit" using "git-add") for each path. A sample output
135 1: binary nothing foo.png
136 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
139 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
140 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
141 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
142 version (if the working tree version were also different,
143 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing'). The
144 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
145 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
146 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
151 This shows the status information and gives prompt
152 "Update>>". When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
153 make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
154 comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
155 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose
158 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
163 1: binary nothing foo.png
164 * 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
167 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
174 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
175 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
179 This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
180 information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
181 HEAD version. Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
185 This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
186 'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
190 This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
191 After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
192 and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
193 the change of each hunk. You can say:
195 y - add the change from that hunk to index
196 n - do not add the change from that hunk to index
197 a - add the change from that hunk and all the rest to index
198 d - do not the change from that hunk nor any of the rest to index
199 j - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next
201 J - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next hunk
202 k - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous
204 K - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous hunk
206 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
207 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
211 This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
217 gitlink:git-status[1]
220 gitlink:git-commit[1]
221 gitlink:git-update-index[1]
225 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
229 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
233 Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite