tech-studies

Checking status (git status)

2 min read

Checking status (git status)

git status reports the state of the working tree and index relative to HEAD: what is staged, what is modified, and what is untracked.

Why it matters

It is the most-run Git command and the safety check before every commit, merge, or branch switch — it tells you exactly what will go into the next commit and warns about in-progress operations. Reading it correctly prevents the two classic mistakes: committing the wrong files and clobbering uncommitted work.

How it works

Output is grouped by area; the short form git status -s prints two status columns per file (left = index/staged, right = working tree).

XY   X = staged (index), Y = working tree;  _ marks a space (no change there)
M_   staged modification
_M   unstaged modification
MM   staged, then modified again in the tree
A_   newly added (staged) file
??   untracked
D_   staged deletion        _D   unstaged deletion
  • Branch line — full output names the branch and its position vs upstream (ahead 2, behind 1, diverged) when a tracking branch is set.
  • -uno / -uall — control untracked-file reporting; -uno hides them (faster in huge repos), -uall lists files inside untracked dirs.
  • --ignored lists files excluded by .gitignore, useful for debugging why a file won’t stage.
  • Operation banners — during a merge/rebase/cherry-pick, status shows “fix conflicts and run git commit” plus the conflicted paths.

Example

git status -s -b
## feature/login...origin/feature/login [ahead 1]
M  auth.py        # staged fix
 M README.md      # edited, not staged
?? .env           # untracked — should this be in .gitignore?

Here a commit now would include auth.py only; README.md and .env would be left behind.

Pitfalls

  • Trusting status to show content — it lists which files changed, not what changed; use git diff to see the actual hunks.
  • Untracked secrets hiding in plain sight — ?? files like .env are easy to scan past and then sweep in with git add ..
  • Slow status in monorepos — millions of files make it crawl; enable core.fsmonitor and untrackedCache, or scope with a pathspec.

See also

Graph View

Backlinks