# Usage of `-u` flag in `git status` cli

1 messages from 2024-06-28 to 2024-06-28. Participants: Ajith Sakharia.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/61689

## Ajith Sakharia, 2024-06-28 04:21

Subject: Usage of `-u` flag in `git status` cli
Message-ID: <CA+8M_AZTtqSU7ugZ-w8yyOKeP+opambD08DSOGko8akL_CXQqQ@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CA%2B8M_AZTtqSU7ugZ-w8yyOKeP%2BopambD08DSOGko8akL_CXQqQ%40mail.gmail.com

```
Hello,
I have recently been working on some performance initiatives on git
status cli and its usages. As a result I found something confusing and
wanted a confirmation on the expected behaviour.
Based on documentation the status cli has a `-u/--untracked-files flag
with 3 potential values `no` `normal` and `all`. The `true`is expected
to be treated as `normal`. But from my experiments it looks like there
is a difference in `git status --untracked-files` vs `git status
--untracked-files=true` (notice the existence of `true` being
explicitly mentioned), where the `git status --untracked-files` gets
treated as `git status --untracked-files=all` as suppose to `normal`.
Additionally, `--untracked-files=all` doesn't seem to use the benefits
of `fsmonitor` and `untracked cache`. From some additional
investigations the impact seems to also scale to git plugins across
tooling like vscode, warp etc that use the `-u` flag as part of their
syncing logic.
Could you please help me understand if this is expected ?
Regards,
Ajith K S

```