Tracking Changes

Now that you have a repository, let's learn how to track changes. This is where Git's real power begins!

The Three Areas of Git

Git organizes your work into three areas:

┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│    Working      │     │    Staging      │     │   Repository    │
│   Directory     │ ──► │     Area        │ ──► │   (Commits)     │
│                 │     │                 │     │                 │
│  Edit files     │     │  Prepare files  │     │  Save snapshot  │
│  here           │     │  for commit     │     │  permanently    │
└─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘
        │                       │                       │
     git add              git commit              git log

The Staging Area (Shopping Cart Metaphor)

Think of the staging area like a shopping cart:

• Your working directory is the store with all the products
• The staging area is your cart
• Committing is like checking out at the register

You choose exactly what goes into each snapshot by adding items to your cart!

Adding Files to Staging

To add a file to the staging area:

# Add a specific file
git add index.html

# Add multiple files
git add index.html style.css

# Add all changed files
git add .

Checking Status

To see what's happening in your repository:

git status

This shows you:

• Untracked files (gray) - new files Git doesn't know about
• Modified files (yellow) - changed since last commit
• Staged files (green) - ready for the next commit

Try It Out!

Use the interactive playground below to practice staging files.

Watch how git status changes as you stage and unstage files!