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GIT-ADD(1) Git Manual GIT-ADD(1)

NAME
git-add - Add file contents to the index

DESCRIPTION
This command updates the index using the current content found in the working tree, to
prepare the content staged for the next commit. It typically adds the current content of
existing paths as a whole, but with some options it can also be used to add content with only
part of the changes made to the working tree files applied, or remove paths that do not exist
in the working tree anymore.

The "index" holds a snapshot of the content of the working tree, and it is this snapshot that
is taken as the contents of the next commit. Thus after making any changes to the working
tree, and before running the commit command, you must use the add command to add any new or
modified files to the index.

This command can be performed multiple times before a commit. It only adds the content of the
specified file(s) at the time the add command is run; if you want subsequent changes included
in the next commit, then you must run git add again to add the new content to the index.

The git status command can be used to obtain a summary of which files have changes that are
staged for the next commit.

The git add command will not add ignored files by default. If any ignored files were
explicitly specified on the command line, git add will fail with a list of ignored files.
Ignored files reached by directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote
your globs before the shell) will be silently ignored. The git add command can be used to add
ignored files with the -f (force) option.

Please see git-commit(1) for alternative ways to add content to a commit.

OPTIONS
<pathspec>...
Files to add content from. Fileglobs (e.g. *.c) can be given to add all matching files.
Also a leading directory name (e.g. dir to add dir/file1 and dir/file2) can be given to
update the index to match the current state of the directory as a whole (e.g. specifying
dir will record not just a file dir/file1 modified in the working tree, a file dir/file2
added to the working tree, but also a file dir/file3 removed from the working tree). Note
that older versions of Git used to ignore removed files; use --no-all option if you want
to add modified or new files but ignore removed ones.

For more details about the <pathspec> syntax, see the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).

-n, --dry-run
Don’t actually add the file(s), just show if they exist and/or will be ignored.

-v, --verbose
Be verbose.

-f, --force
Allow adding otherwise ignored files.

--sparse
Allow updating index entries outside of the sparse-checkout cone. Normally, git add
refuses to update index entries whose paths do not fit within the sparse-checkout cone,
since those files might be removed from the working tree without warning. See git-sparse-
checkout(1) for more details.

-i, --interactive
Add modified contents in the working tree interactively to the index. Optional path
arguments may be supplied to limit operation to a subset of the working tree. See
“Interactive mode” for details.

-p, --patch
Interactively choose hunks of patch between the index and the work tree and add them to
the index. This gives the user a chance to review the difference before adding modified
contents to the index.

This effectively runs add --interactive, but bypasses the initial command menu and
directly jumps to the patch subcommand. See “Interactive mode” for details.

-e, --edit
Open the diff vs. the index in an editor and let the user edit it. After the editor was
closed, adjust the hunk headers and apply the patch to the index.

The intent of this option is to pick and choose lines of the patch to apply, or even to
modify the contents of lines to be staged. This can be quicker and more flexible than
using the interactive hunk selector. However, it is easy to confuse oneself and create a
patch that does not apply to the index. See EDITING PATCHES below.

-u, --update
Update the index just where it already has an entry matching <pathspec>. This removes as
well as modifies index entries to match the working tree, but adds no new files.

If no <pathspec> is given when -u option is used, all tracked files in the entire working
tree are updated (old versions of Git used to limit the update to the current directory
and its subdirectories).

-A, --all, --no-ignore-removal
Update the index not only where the working tree has a file matching <pathspec> but also
where the index already has an entry. This adds, modifies, and removes index entries to
match the working tree.

If no <pathspec> is given when -A option is used, all files in the entire working tree
are updated (old versions of Git used to limit the update to the current directory and
its subdirectories).

--no-all, --ignore-removal
Update the index by adding new files that are unknown to the index and files modified in
the working tree, but ignore files that have been removed from the working tree. This
option is a no-op when no <pathspec> is used.

This option is primarily to help users who are used to older versions of Git, whose "git
add <pathspec>..." was a synonym for "git add --no-all <pathspec>...", i.e. ignored
removed files.

-N, --intent-to-add
Record only the fact that the path will be added later. An entry for the path is placed
in the index with no content. This is useful for, among other things, showing the
unstaged content of such files with git diff and committing them with git commit -a.

--refresh
Don’t add the file(s), but only refresh their stat() information in the index.

--ignore-errors
If some files could not be added because of errors indexing them, do not abort the
operation, but continue adding the others. The command shall still exit with non-zero
status. The configuration variable add.ignoreErrors can be set to true to make this the
default behaviour.

--ignore-missing
This option can only be used together with --dry-run. By using this option the user can
check if any of the given files would be ignored, no matter if they are already present
in the work tree or not.

--no-warn-embedded-repo
By default, git add will warn when adding an embedded repository to the index without
using git submodule add to create an entry in .gitmodules. This option will suppress the
warning (e.g., if you are manually performing operations on submodules).

--renormalize
Apply the "clean" process freshly to all tracked files to forcibly add them again to the
index. This is useful after changing core.autocrlf configuration or the text attribute in
order to correct files added with wrong CRLF/LF line endings. This option implies -u.

--chmod=(+|-)x
Override the executable bit of the added files. The executable bit is only changed in the
index, the files on disk are left unchanged.

--pathspec-from-file=<file>
Pathspec is passed in <file> instead of commandline args. If <file> is exactly - then
standard input is used. Pathspec elements are separated by LF or CR/LF. Pathspec elements
can be quoted as explained for the configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-
config(1)). See also --pathspec-file-nul and global --literal-pathspecs.

--pathspec-file-nul
Only meaningful with --pathspec-from-file. Pathspec elements are separated with NUL
character and all other characters are taken literally (including newlines and quotes).

--
This option can be used to separate command-line options from the list of files, (useful
when filenames might be mistaken for command-line options).

EXAMPLES
• Adds content from all *.txt files under Documentation directory and its subdirectories:

$ git add Documentation/\*.txt

Note that the asterisk * is quoted from the shell in this example; this lets the command
include the files from subdirectories of Documentation/ directory.

• Considers adding content from all git-*.sh scripts:

$ git add git-*.sh

Because this example lets the shell expand the asterisk (i.e. you are listing the files
explicitly), it does not consider subdir/git-foo.sh.

INTERACTIVE MODE
When the command enters the interactive mode, it shows the output of the status subcommand,
and then goes into its interactive command loop.

The command loop shows the list of subcommands available, and gives a prompt "What now> ". In
general, when the prompt ends with a single >, you can pick only one of the choices given and
type return, like this:

*** Commands ***
1: status 2: update 3: revert 4: add untracked
5: patch 6: diff 7: quit 8: help
What now> 1

You also could say s or sta or status above as long as the choice is unique.

The main command loop has 6 subcommands (plus help and quit).

status
This shows the change between HEAD and index (i.e. what will be committed if you say git
commit), and between index and working tree files (i.e. what you could stage further
before git commit using git add) for each path. A sample output looks like this:

staged unstaged path
1: binary nothing foo.png
2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl

It shows that foo.png has differences from HEAD (but that is binary so line count cannot
be shown) and there is no difference between indexed copy and the working tree version
(if the working tree version were also different, binary would have been shown in place
of nothing). The other file, git-add--interactive.perl, has 403 lines added and 35 lines
deleted if you commit what is in the index, but working tree file has further
modifications (one addition and one deletion).

update
This shows the status information and issues an "Update>>" prompt. When the prompt ends
with double >>, you can make more than one selection, concatenated with whitespace or
comma. Also you can say ranges. E.g. "2-5 7,9" to choose 2,3,4,5,7,9 from the list. If
the second number in a range is omitted, all remaining patches are taken. E.g. "7-" to
choose 7,8,9 from the list. You can say * to choose everything.

What you chose are then highlighted with *, like this:

staged unstaged path
1: binary nothing foo.png
* 2: +403/-35 +1/-1 git-add--interactive.perl

To remove selection, prefix the input with - like this:

Update>> -2

After making the selection, answer with an empty line to stage the contents of working
tree files for selected paths in the index.

revert
This has a very similar UI to update, and the staged information for selected paths are
reverted to that of the HEAD version. Reverting new paths makes them untracked.

add untracked
This has a very similar UI to update and revert, and lets you add untracked paths to the
index.

patch
This lets you choose one path out of a status like selection. After choosing the path, it
presents the diff between the index and the working tree file and asks you if you want to
stage the change of each hunk. You can select one of the following options and type
return:

y - stage this hunk
n - do not stage this hunk
q - quit; do not stage this hunk or any of the remaining ones
a - stage this hunk and all later hunks in the file
d - do not stage this hunk or any of the later hunks in the file
g - select a hunk to go to
/ - search for a hunk matching the given regex
j - leave this hunk undecided, see next undecided hunk
J - leave this hunk undecided, see next hunk
k - leave this hunk undecided, see previous undecided hunk
K - leave this hunk undecided, see previous hunk
s - split the current hunk into smaller hunks
e - manually edit the current hunk
? - print help

After deciding the fate for all hunks, if there is any hunk that was chosen, the index is
updated with the selected hunks.

You can omit having to type return here, by setting the configuration variable
interactive.singleKey to true.

diff
This lets you review what will be committed (i.e. between HEAD and index).

EDITING PATCHES
Invoking git add -e or selecting e from the interactive hunk selector will open a patch in
your editor; after the editor exits, the result is applied to the index. You are free to make
arbitrary changes to the patch, but note that some changes may have confusing results, or
even result in a patch that cannot be applied. If you want to abort the operation entirely
(i.e., stage nothing new in the index), simply delete all lines of the patch. The list below
describes some common things you may see in a patch, and which editing operations make sense
on them.

added content
Added content is represented by lines beginning with "+". You can prevent staging any
addition lines by deleting them.

removed content
Removed content is represented by lines beginning with "-". You can prevent staging their
removal by converting the "-" to a " " (space).

modified content
Modified content is represented by "-" lines (removing the old content) followed by "+"
lines (adding the replacement content). You can prevent staging the modification by
converting "-" lines to " ", and removing "+" lines. Beware that modifying only half of
the pair is likely to introduce confusing changes to the index.

There are also more complex operations that can be performed. But beware that because the
patch is applied only to the index and not the working tree, the working tree will appear to
"undo" the change in the index. For example, introducing a new line into the index that is in
neither the HEAD nor the working tree will stage the new line for commit, but the line will
appear to be reverted in the working tree.

Avoid using these constructs, or do so with extreme caution.

removing untouched content
Content which does not differ between the index and working tree may be shown on context
lines, beginning with a " " (space). You can stage context lines for removal by
converting the space to a "-". The resulting working tree file will appear to re-add the
content.

modifying existing content
One can also modify context lines by staging them for removal (by converting " " to "-")
and adding a "+" line with the new content. Similarly, one can modify "+" lines for
existing additions or modifications. In all cases, the new modification will appear
reverted in the working tree.

new content
You may also add new content that does not exist in the patch; simply add new lines, each
starting with "+". The addition will appear reverted in the working tree.

There are also several operations which should be avoided entirely, as they will make the
patch impossible to apply:

• adding context (" ") or removal ("-") lines

• deleting context or removal lines

• modifying the contents of context or removal lines

SEE ALSO
git-status(1) git-rm(1) git-reset(1) git-mv(1) git-commit(1) git-update-index(1)

GIT
Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.34.1 02/26/2026 GIT-ADD(1)