What is the Staging Environment?
The staging environment (also called the staging area) is like a buffer zone where you gather your changes before committing them to your repository.
It lets you decide exactly which files and edits should be included in your next commit, giving you fine-grained control over your project’s history.
Here are some useful commands related to staging:
git add <file> – Add a specific file to the staging area
git add --all or git add -A – Stage all new, modified, and deleted files
git status – View the current status of tracked and staged files
git restore --staged <file> – Remove a file from the staging area (unstage)
Stage a File with git add
To tell Git you want to include a file in your next commit, add it to the staging area using:
git add index.html
This stages index.html. You can see what’s currently staged by running:
git status
Example output:
On branch master
No commits yet
Changes to be committed:
(use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
new file: index.html
Stage Multiple Files with Git
To stage all changes in your project (including new files, modified files, and deleted files) at once, you can use either of these commands:
git add --all
or
git add -A
View Staged Files with git status
You can check which files are staged and ready to be committed using the git status command.
Example:
git status
Output might look like this:
On branch master
No commits yet
Changes to be committed:
(use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
new file: README.md
new file: bluestyle.css
new file: index.html
How to Unstage a File
If you accidentally added a file to the staging area, you can remove it (unstage it) using:
git restore --staged index.html
This command takes index.html out of the staging area, so it won’t be included in the next commit.
Alternatively, you can achieve the same result with:
git reset HEAD index.html
Troubleshooting
Accidentally staged the wrong file?
Use:
css
git restore --staged <file>
This will remove the file from the staging area.
Forgot to stage a file?
Simply add it before committing:
csharp
git add <file>
Not sure what’s staged?
Check the status of your files:
lua
git status
This shows what changes are staged and what’s still unstaged.
