Don't use 'git stage -A'

This is a follow-up to my earlier post Don’t use ‘git commit -m’.

Another common “anti-pattern” in standard Git usage (in my opinion, I have no data to back this up). Just like with git commit -m "msg", I see that using git stage -A to stage all modified files is a common practice amongst Git beginners. Or it’s friend git stage . to stage all files in the current (usually project root) directory.

Note: git add is just an alias for git stage.

So what’s the problem with this? Well, it stages all changes made. Are you 100% sure you want all those changes? You don’t know until you’ve looked at them. Look through the Git diff to see all changes you’ve made. Maybe you discover something you missed. Perhaps a leftover debug print? A file you accidentally created or auto generated?

Ideally you should use a proper Git client. That makes it easier to go through the changes, browse the code, and even stage parts of a file. To achieve the best possible commits and commit history you should carefully look through what you are committing. No one wants to see a bunch of commits like “Fixed copy-paste mistake”, “Removed debug print”, etc., because you were careless.

Obviously, mistakes happen anyway. Even with multiple people reviewing your code. But let’s all put in a little extra effort to make reviewing code and reading Git history a more pleasant experience.