How to stage individual Git hunks without leaving Neovim using gitsigns.nvim?

Explanation

gitsigns.nvim integrates git diff information directly into Neovim's sign column and provides commands to stage, unstage, reset, and preview individual hunks — all without opening a terminal. This enables surgical commit preparation: stage only the specific lines you want, leaving unrelated changes unstaged.

How it works

After installing and configuring gitsigns.nvim, these commands become available:

• :Gitsigns stage_hunk — stage the hunk under the cursor (default mapping: <leader>hs)
• :Gitsigns undo_stage_hunk — unstage the most recently staged hunk (<leader>hu)
• :Gitsigns reset_hunk — discard the current hunk's changes (<leader>hr)
• :Gitsigns preview_hunk — show the diff inline in a floating window (<leader>hp)
• ]c / [c — navigate to the next/previous changed hunk

Example

Suppose you have two unrelated changes in the same file: a bug fix in the middle and a refactoring near the top. Navigate to the bug fix with ]c, confirm it with :Gitsigns preview_hunk, then stage it alone with :Gitsigns stage_hunk. The refactoring stays unstaged — letting you commit a clean, focused fix.

:Gitsigns preview_hunk   ← verify the diff looks correct
:Gitsigns stage_hunk     ← stage only this hunk
:Git commit              ← commit via fugitive (or :terminal git commit)

Tips

• In Visual mode, :'<,'>Gitsigns stage_hunk stages only the selected lines within a hunk — useful when a hunk is large and you want to commit just part of it
• :Gitsigns blame_line shows an inline blame annotation for the current line
• :Gitsigns diffthis opens a two-pane diff for the whole file
• Pair with vim-fugitive for a complete workflow: stage hunks with gitsigns, write the commit message with :Git commit