6 git-add - Add file contents to the index
10 'git-add' [-n] [-v] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [-u] [--refresh] [--] <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 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default. If any
32 ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
33 will fail with a list of ignored files. Ignored files reached by
34 directory recursion or filename globbing will be silently ignored.
35 The 'add' command can be used to add ignored files with the `-f`
38 Please see gitlink:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
45 Files to add content from. Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
46 be given to add all matching files. Also a
47 leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
48 and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
49 directory, recursively.
52 Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
58 Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
61 Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
65 Update only files that git already knows about. This is similar
66 to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
67 except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
68 command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files are
72 Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
73 information in the index.
76 This option can be used to separate command-line options from
77 the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
78 for command-line options).
84 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
85 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
86 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
87 those in info/exclude. See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
92 git-add Documentation/\\*.txt::
94 Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation`
95 directory and its subdirectories.
97 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
98 example; this lets the command to include the files from
99 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
103 Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts.
104 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk
105 (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not
106 consider `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
110 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
111 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
112 interactive command loop.
114 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
115 gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends
116 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
117 and type return, like this:
121 1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
122 5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
126 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
129 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
133 This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
134 committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
135 working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
136 "git commit" using "git-add") for each path. A sample output
141 1: binary nothing foo.png
142 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
145 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
146 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
147 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
148 version (if the working tree version were also different,
149 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing'). The
150 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
151 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
152 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
157 This shows the status information and gives prompt
158 "Update>>". When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
159 make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
160 comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
161 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose
164 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
169 1: binary nothing foo.png
170 * 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
173 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
180 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
181 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
185 This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
186 information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
187 HEAD version. Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
191 This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
192 'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
196 This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
197 After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
198 and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
199 the change of each hunk. You can say:
201 y - add the change from that hunk to index
202 n - do not add the change from that hunk to index
203 a - add the change from that hunk and all the rest to index
204 d - do not the change from that hunk nor any of the rest to index
205 j - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next
207 J - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next hunk
208 k - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous
210 K - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous hunk
212 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
213 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
217 This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
223 gitlink:git-status[1]
226 gitlink:git-commit[1]
227 gitlink:git-update-index[1]
231 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
235 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
239 Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite