6 git-add - Add file contents to the index
11 'git-add' [-n] [-v] [-f] [--interactive | -i] [-u] [--refresh]
16 This command adds the current content of new or modified files to the
17 index, thus staging that content for inclusion in the next commit.
19 The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it
20 is this snapshot that is taken as the contents of the next commit. Thus
21 after making any changes to the working directory, and before running
22 the commit command, you must use the 'add' command to add any new or
23 modified files to the index.
25 This command can be performed multiple times before a commit. It only
26 adds the content of the specified file(s) at the time the add command is
27 run; if you want subsequent changes included in the next commit, then
28 you must run 'git add' again to add the new content to the index.
30 The 'git status' command can be used to obtain a summary of which
31 files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
33 The 'git add' command will not add ignored files by default. If any
34 ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, 'git add'
35 will fail with a list of ignored files. Ignored files reached by
36 directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
37 globs before the shell) will be silently ignored. The 'add' command can
38 be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
40 Please see gitlink:git-commit[1] for alternative ways to add content to a
47 Files to add content from. Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
48 be given to add all matching files. Also a
49 leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
50 and `dir/file2`) can be given to add all files in the
51 directory, recursively.
54 Don't actually add the file(s), just show if they exist.
60 Allow adding otherwise ignored files.
63 Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to
67 Update only files that git already knows about. This is similar
68 to what "git commit -a" does in preparation for making a commit,
69 except that the update is limited to paths specified on the
70 command line. If no paths are specified, all tracked files are
74 Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
75 information in the index.
78 This option can be used to separate command-line options from
79 the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
80 for command-line options).
86 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
87 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
88 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
89 those in info/exclude. See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
94 git-add Documentation/\\*.txt::
96 Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation`
97 directory and its subdirectories.
99 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
100 example; this lets the command to include the files from
101 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
105 Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts.
106 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk
107 (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not
108 consider `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
112 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
113 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
114 interactive command loop.
116 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
117 gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends
118 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
119 and type return, like this:
123 1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
124 5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
128 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
131 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
135 This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
136 committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
137 working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
138 "git commit" using "git-add") for each path. A sample output
143 1: binary nothing foo.png
144 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
147 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
148 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
149 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
150 version (if the working tree version were also different,
151 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing'). The
152 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
153 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
154 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
159 This shows the status information and gives prompt
160 "Update>>". When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
161 make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
162 comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
163 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose
166 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
171 1: binary nothing foo.png
172 * 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
175 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
182 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
183 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
187 This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
188 information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
189 HEAD version. Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
193 This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
194 'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
198 This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
199 After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
200 and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
201 the change of each hunk. You can say:
203 y - add the change from that hunk to index
204 n - do not add the change from that hunk to index
205 a - add the change from that hunk and all the rest to index
206 d - do not the change from that hunk nor any of the rest to index
207 j - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next
209 J - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next hunk
210 k - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous
212 K - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous hunk
214 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
215 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
219 This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
225 gitlink:git-status[1]
228 gitlink:git-commit[1]
229 gitlink:git-update-index[1]
233 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
237 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
241 Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite