Why git add Wildcard Won’t Stage Your Nested Files (And How to Fix It)

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 14:54:48 +0530

I recently ran into an issue while working with Git. I had a bunch of Markdown files spread across multiple nested folders and wanted to stage them all at once. So I ran:

 
 BASH
 
git add *.md

But only the .md files in the current directory got added (to the staging area). The .md files in the nested directories didn’t get added.

The root casue: the * wildcard isn’t processed by Git, but by the shell. So the shell was only matching them in the current folder. What a revelation!

Shell on Nerdsid.com

Why git add Wildcard Won’t Stage Your Nested Files (And How to Fix It)