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 '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 Don't add the file(s), but only refresh their stat()
71 information in the index.
74 This option can be used to separate command-line options from
75 the list of files, (useful when filenames might be mistaken
76 for command-line options).
82 The optional configuration variable 'core.excludesfile' indicates a path to a
83 file containing patterns of file names to exclude from git-add, similar to
84 $GIT_DIR/info/exclude. Patterns in the exclude file are used in addition to
85 those in info/exclude. See link:repository-layout.html[repository layout].
90 git-add Documentation/\\*.txt::
92 Adds content from all `\*.txt` files under `Documentation`
93 directory and its subdirectories.
95 Note that the asterisk `\*` is quoted from the shell in this
96 example; this lets the command to include the files from
97 subdirectories of `Documentation/` directory.
101 Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts.
102 Because this example lets shell expand the asterisk
103 (i.e. you are listing the files explicitly), it does not
104 consider `subdir/git-foo.sh`.
108 When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the
109 output of the 'status' subcommand, and then goes into its
110 interactive command loop.
112 The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and
113 gives a prompt "What now> ". In general, when the prompt ends
114 with a single '>', you can pick only one of the choices given
115 and type return, like this:
119 1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
120 5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
124 You also could say "s" or "sta" or "status" above as long as the
127 The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).
131 This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be
132 committed if you say "git commit"), and between index and
133 working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further before
134 "git commit" using "git-add") for each path. A sample output
139 1: binary nothing foo.png
140 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
143 It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is
144 binary so line count cannot be shown) and there is no
145 difference between indexed copy and the working tree
146 version (if the working tree version were also different,
147 'binary' would have been shown in place of 'nothing'). The
148 other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added
149 and 35 lines deleted if you commit what is in the index, but
150 working tree file has further modifications (one addition and
155 This shows the status information and gives prompt
156 "Update>>". When the prompt ends with double '>>', you can
157 make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
158 comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose
159 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. You can say '*' to choose
162 What you chose are then highlighted with '*',
167 1: binary nothing foo.png
168 * 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl
171 To remove selection, prefix the input with `-`
178 After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the
179 contents of working tree files for selected paths in the index.
183 This has a very similar UI to 'update', and the staged
184 information for selected paths are reverted to that of the
185 HEAD version. Reverting new paths makes them untracked.
189 This has a very similar UI to 'update' and
190 'revert', and lets you add untracked paths to the index.
194 This lets you choose one path out of 'status' like selection.
195 After choosing the path, it presents diff between the index
196 and the working tree file and asks you if you want to stage
197 the change of each hunk. You can say:
199 y - add the change from that hunk to index
200 n - do not add the change from that hunk to index
201 a - add the change from that hunk and all the rest to index
202 d - do not the change from that hunk nor any of the rest to index
203 j - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next
205 J - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the next hunk
206 k - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous
208 K - do not decide on this hunk now, and view the previous hunk
210 After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk
211 that was chosen, the index is updated with the selected hunks.
215 This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between
221 gitlink:git-status[1]
224 gitlink:git-commit[1]
225 gitlink:git-update-index[1]
229 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
233 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
237 Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite