# Guided Exercise: Predict `git status` Before You See It

This is a paper exercise — commit to a prediction before checking it in the Lab.

## Your task

Starting from a clean repository (nothing staged, nothing modified), predict what `git status
--short` would show after EACH of these actions, in sequence:

1. `echo "v1" > file.txt` (a brand new file)
2. `git add file.txt`
3. `echo "v2" >> file.txt` (modifying the ALREADY-STAGED file further)
4. `git commit -m "Add file"`

## A worked shape to check yourself against

1. `?? file.txt` — untracked, in the working tree only.
2. `A  file.txt` — staged (left column).
3. `AM file.txt` — this is the surprising one: staged (`A`, left column) AND modified again
   since staging (`M`, right column) — the staging area has a SNAPSHOT from step 2, and your
   further edit in step 3 hasn't been staged yet.
4. Clean (nothing) — but only the STAGED version (from step 2, without the step-3 edit) actually
   got committed; the step-3 edit remains as an uncommitted modification afterward.

## Instructor Notes

**Facilitation:** Item 3 is deliberately the hardest — it's the exact scenario that surprises
real beginners ("I thought I already staged this file, why does it show changes again?"). Worth
slowing down on.

**Approximate timing:** 10-12 minutes live discussion; 8 minutes self-paced.