Staging Area

The staging area is the list of changes you have marked for your next commit. It sits between your working directory and your history, and nothing reaches a commit without passing through it.

That intermediate step is the part worth understanding, because it is what makes git diff useful. git diff with no arguments shows what changed in your working directory since the last commit. git diff --staged shows what is queued up for the next one. Comparing those two views tells you exactly what a git commit is about to record.

git add src/index.ts
git diff --staged

Staging is also how you commit part of a change and leave the rest alone. Add only the files you are ready for, commit, then deal with the remainder. Most Git workflows assume you will do this regularly rather than staging everything at the end.

If a staged change turns out to be wrong, git restore --staged <file> takes it back out of the index and leaves it in your working directory, where you can edit it properly. See Staged Changes and Unstaged Changes for the two sides of this.

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