Title: VS Code Tip Of The Day - Selectively Adding Files To A Git Commit

Date: 2021-04-03 10:26

Modified: 2021-04-03 10:26

Category: Posts

tags: git,vscode

cover: static/imgs/vscode.jpg

summary: Recently I figured out a way to selectively add files to a Git commit.

Small tip: sometimes when working on something I find myself making changes to many

files. I then only want to include a few of those files in my next Git commit. To

date I've always just manually done a `git add <file>` in the terminal for each

file I want to add, but this is tedious if there's many of them.

Turns out there's an easy way to do this in VS Code. If you go to the Source Control

item on the left nav (the icon that looks like a branch), you’ll see a list of all

untracked and modified files. For example:


In this screenshot you can see I have a number of files that have been modified (the

ones with the "M" beside them) and two new (untracked) files (the ones with the "U"

beside them).

If you want to see what's changed in any of the modified files, clicking the item will

bring up a diff window. If you then want to include (or "stage") this file for the

next commit, right-click it and pick "Stage Changes":


Repeat for each file you want to include, and then do a `git commit` to complete the

commit. Alternatively if you're anti-terminal you can click the checkmark on this

same view to complete the commit.