Working tree, staging, commit — the model AI breaks first — step 3 of 9
git status, git diff, and gh pr list — the three you'll run daily
Reading what AI just did is half the job. These three commands cover 90% of your daily inspection:
git status
Shows the four categories of files (staged, modified, untracked,
unmerged). The shortcut form is git status --porcelain — machine-
readable, one file per line, two-character status codes. This is what
scripts (and AI agents) parse. Use the human form when reading,
porcelain when scripting.
git diff
By default shows the working tree vs staging — what you'd lose if you discarded changes. Two key variations:
git diff --staged— shows what'll go into the next commitgit diff main...HEAD— full diff of your branch against main
When Cursor commits something you don't trust, run git diff HEAD~1 —
that's "what did the last commit change?" You'll catch the wrong-files-
staged bug in 30 seconds.
gh pr list and gh pr view
git doesn't know GitHub exists; gh does. Lists open PRs in your
repo, shows the diff of any one of them, lets you check out a PR
locally with gh pr checkout 142. AI builders live in this command —
it's how you review PRs without leaving the terminal.
A useful rule
If you can read git status and git diff --staged, you can catch
almost every commit Cursor messes up before it lands. Both commands
are read-only. They cost nothing to run. Run them constantly.
Run the editor. We parse a status snapshot and a list of open PRs.
Working tree, staging, commit — the model AI breaks first — step 3 of 9
git status, git diff, and gh pr list — the three you'll run daily
Reading what AI just did is half the job. These three commands cover 90% of your daily inspection:
git status
Shows the four categories of files (staged, modified, untracked,
unmerged). The shortcut form is git status --porcelain — machine-
readable, one file per line, two-character status codes. This is what
scripts (and AI agents) parse. Use the human form when reading,
porcelain when scripting.
git diff
By default shows the working tree vs staging — what you'd lose if you discarded changes. Two key variations:
git diff --staged— shows what'll go into the next commitgit diff main...HEAD— full diff of your branch against main
When Cursor commits something you don't trust, run git diff HEAD~1 —
that's "what did the last commit change?" You'll catch the wrong-files-
staged bug in 30 seconds.
gh pr list and gh pr view
git doesn't know GitHub exists; gh does. Lists open PRs in your
repo, shows the diff of any one of them, lets you check out a PR
locally with gh pr checkout 142. AI builders live in this command —
it's how you review PRs without leaving the terminal.
A useful rule
If you can read git status and git diff --staged, you can catch
almost every commit Cursor messes up before it lands. Both commands
are read-only. They cost nothing to run. Run them constantly.
Run the editor. We parse a status snapshot and a list of open PRs.