Stash unstaged work while leaving staged edits available.

Git: Keep-index preserves the staged state for testing or committing while stashing the rest.

Shell terminal
set -euo pipefail
git stash push -q --keep-index -m 'Unstaged work'
git diff --cached --name-only
git diff --name-only

Expected output EXAMPLE

note.txt

Details

Requires Git and Bash. Run in a disposable practice repository. The test setup below creates the starting files and commits. Keep-index preserves the staged state for testing or committing while stashing the rest. The input setup creates a disposable practice repository with a fictional local author identity. Run these examples only in that repository.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · git version 2.43.0 · git 1:2.43.0-1ubuntu7.3

Test inputs, results and environment

The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Snippet process uid 65534 with a read-only root filesystem and temporary working files. Networking disabled. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.

Architecture / host kernel
x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Snippet identity / locale
uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged process) / C.UTF-8
Interpreter invocation
bash -euo pipefail -c <published code>
Container image ID
sha256:ec91410a8f6ec3e985830b5e3a0560306d36f8c1c5ccd91a6699abe707123fa3
Code SHA-256
4c3dcc06de89813e322987d4d470e771447fc7f00d3d84de76e4f6b03bd9a38d
Dependencies
git 1:2.43.0-1ubuntu7.3

Test input setup

These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.

git init -q -b main
git config user.name 'Example Developer'
git config user.email 'developer@example.invalid'
git config commit.gpgsign false
git config tag.gpgsign false
git config color.ui false
printf 'first
' > note.txt
git add note.txt
git commit -qm 'Initial notes'
touch other.txt; git add other.txt; git commit -qm 'Other file'; printf 'staged\n' >> note.txt; git add note.txt; printf 'unstaged\n' >> other.txt

Observed standard output

note.txt

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.