📦 CHAPTER 1 · GIT ADD

Arranging the Tray

You've just modified a recipe at home. But you don't publish it immediately — that would be chaos.
First, you arrange your changes neatly on a tray…

Scene I

You modify a recipe at home

You've been experimenting. You changed the sauce base, added a new spice blend, tweaked the cooking time, and updated the plating instructions.

But you don't immediately publish it. That would be chaos.

Scene II

The Staging Tray

Instead, you take out a clean tray and carefully decide which changes to put on it:

🧅 Chop the onions
🧂 Measure the spices
🍽️ Arrange ingredients neatly

That tray is the staging area.

🍳 The Kitchen Stage the recipe changes

0 / 0 staged

git add →

Click or drag ingredients here
to git add them

Task: Stage only the recipe-related changes. Leave unrelated files behind!

Result

Perfect staging!

Scene III

That's git add

git add means:
"I want THESE changes to be part of the next official version."

You're choosing what goes into the final dish. Not everything you touched — just what's ready.

Scene IV

Without git add…

Git just watches silently…
like a librarian judging you. 🤫

It knows what changed. But until you git add, it won't include anything in the next commit.

Epilogue

git add is your tray.
It's where you curate changes
before they become history.

🏠

WORKING DIR

Where you cook

📋

STAGING AREA

The tray

📦

COMMIT

Published recipe

$ git add sauce.py spices.yaml plating.md

# ✓ 3 files staged — ready for commit

$ git status

Changes to be committed:

modified: sauce.py

modified: spices.yaml

new file: plating.md