Making changes and committing

In this chapterStage the changes you want and make a clear commit.

Open the Changes tab.

Stage what you want

• Stage, unstage or discard by file, by hunk or by single line.
• Drag files between Unstaged and Staged, or onto the bin to discard.
• Folders view: files under their folders; fold one, collapse all, stage a whole folder.
• Restore the last discard if you change your mind, or use Snapshots (taken automatically before every discard or hard reset) to go back.

Read the changes

• Word-level highlights and syntax colours.
• Moved lines shown in blue, not as a deletion plus an addition.
• Ignore whitespace, choose lines of context, wrap long lines.
• Image changes side by side, as an onion skin, or with a swipe.
• Text encoding: files that aren’t UTF-8 can be read in their own encoding.
• Right-click a file’s header for its actions (stage, discard, open, copy path or full path, history…).
• Edit before staging: change a hunk’s text and stage that version.

Commit

1. Write a message: a short summary on the first line, then (optionally) a description. Settings can show a separate description box.
2. Helpers: subject length guide, spell check, gitmoji, commit templates (the repo’s and your own, with {branch}, {issue}, {ticket}, {author}, {date}…), conventional commits (type and scope), co-authors, sign-off, and Wrap the description at 72.
3. Press Commit (or Ctrl+Enter). The account is shown under the button, so you always know who you’re committing as.

Options: Amend the last commit, or Skip commit hooks once.

Smart tools

• Fold into an older commit: amend any earlier commit on the branch with what’s staged; Absorb sends each staged file to the commit that last changed it.
• Changelists: group changed files and commit a group to any branch without switching.
• Protected branches: a warning if the branch only accepts pull requests, with an offer to move your work to a new branch.
• Team awareness: a badge on files someone else is also changing on another remote branch.
• Ignore a file, its extension or folder; restore a file from any commit.
• Patches: export, apply, share as a secret gist link, or email them.