Subject: [PATCH v2 2/4] doc: git-add: simplify discussion of ignored files

From: "Julia Evans via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:20:16 +0000

From: Julia Evans <[email-masked]>

- Mention the --force option earlier
- Remove the explanation of shell globbing vs git's internal glob
  system, it's a common gotcha but I don't think this is an appropriate
  place to explain that concept. There's some discussion of the gotchas
  around globbing and `git add` in the EXAMPLES section which I think
  is clearer.

Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <[email-masked]>
---
 Documentation/git-add.adoc | 11 +++++------
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-add.adoc b/Documentation/git-add.adoc
index 949b016e6fa2..75e223f6b1ea 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-add.adoc
+++ b/Documentation/git-add.adoc
@@ -39,12 +39,11 @@ you must run `git add` again to add the new content to the index.
 The `git status` command can be used to obtain a summary of which
 files have changes that are staged for the next commit.
 
-The `git add` command will not add ignored files by default.  If any
-ignored files were explicitly specified on the command line, `git add`
-will fail with a list of ignored files.  Ignored files reached by
-directory recursion or filename globbing performed by Git (quote your
-globs before the shell) will be silently ignored.  The `git add` command can
-be used to add ignored files with the `-f` (force) option.
+`git add` will not add ignored files by default. You can use the
+`--force` option to add ignored files. If you explicitly specify the
+exact filename of an ignored file (e.g. `git add ignored.txt`), `git
+add` will fail with a list of ignored files. Otherwise it will silently
+ignore the file.
 
 OPTIONS
 -------
-- 
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