When you want Git to track a file in a repository, you must explicitly add it to the repo, which can become a bit cumbersome if you have many files. Another option would be to add/stage all files to the repo, which is much quicker. In general it is best to manually add each to avoid staging files that you don't want, but if you know what you're doing this can save some time.
Like everything in Git, there are a few ways to do this. The behavior and options available also changes depending on the version of Git you're using, so for this article we'll be focusing on Git 2.x, which should be installed on most machines.
Stage all Files
Using this command will stage all files in your repository, which includes all new, modified, and deleted files. The command is as follows:
$ git add -A
The -A option is shorthand for --all.
Another way to do this would be to omit the -A option and just specify a period to indicate all files in the current working directory:
$ git add .
Note: The command git add . only stages files in the current directory and not any subdirectories, whereas git add -A will stage files in subdirectories as well.
Stage all New and Modified Files
The previous commands will also remove a file from your repository if it no longer exists in the project. If that is an undesired behavior in your case then you should use the --ignore-removal option, which will only stage new and modified files:
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$ git add --ignore-removal .
Stage all Modified and Deleted Files
Another variation of this command would be to only stage modified and deleted files, but not any new files. For many existing projects this is actually a safer command than the others since it only affects files already tracked by the repo, and it won't add any others unless you specifically tell it to.
This behavior is achieved via the -u flag, which is shorthand for the --update option:
$ git add -u
Adding Files by Wildcard
Although this technically isn't adding all files, it's another way to add a batch of files. Git allows you to add multiple files at once by using wildcard patterns.
So, for example, if you wanted to add all Python files in your current directory to your repo you'd want to use a command like this:
$ git add *.py
Although, most projects have subdirectories, in which case you'd have to run this command on each one to add all of your Python files. But there is a faster way. Instead you could use the ** syntax, which matches all subdirectories.
So, for another example, this command would add all JavaScript files, including those in subdirectories:
$ git add **/*.js
