Hi, As a relatively novice user of git, there have been far too many times that I have lost data, sometimes quite a lot. So this proposal is about catering for the less experienced users and averting fits of anger and frustration. The only reason my computer still works is because my sub-conscious mind stops me from smashing it or throwing it against a wall. It seems my sub-conscious mind has a pragmatic view of the world and understands that whilst I may receive instantaneous satisfaction at the time, in the long term, the pain will be far worse, and thus prevents me from doing something rash. Below is the detail of my proposal: Whenever a command is issued in git that will cause git to overwrite or delete *ANY* files whose current state isn't already recorded in the repository, git should prompt the user to confirm the operation. This includes untracked files as well as files that are in the 'not staged' and 'staged' lists. To make the consequences of the command transparent, the confirmation should include a list of files that will be affected (perhaps in a similar way to how git status works). The scope of the files listed must match the scope of the command to be executed. No hidden changes, no side-effects. Saying no to the confirmation should abort the command. It may be useful to allow confirmation of individual files, but as a novice user, I can't argue this point objectively, nor reason about its implications and complexity. This feature should be enabled by default whenever a clone or init operation are performed. The user should be able to progressively reduce the range of commands and amount of confirmation interactions that take place. The configuration technique could follow the already established procedure for other configurable data in git. So this could be done globally for the user, or locally within each repository. As a novice user, there may be further useful extensions of this idea, about which I'm unable to reason. So I welcome further elaboration of the idea discussed above. Best regards, Dimitri.
