dolt-status

Display the status

$ dolt status

dolt status

None
    The dolt status command does not accept any command-specific parameters beyond common global Dolt flags (e.g., --help), as its function is simply to display the current state.

The dolt status command displays the state of the Dolt working directory and staging area. It provides a concise summary, showing which data and schema changes are ready to be committed, which have been modified but not yet staged, and which tables are entirely new and untracked. This command is a fundamental tool for understanding the current state of your Dolt database, helping users track their modifications before committing them to the version history. It helps bridge the gap between your local database modifications and the versioned snapshots managed by Dolt. It is inspired by and functions similarly to git status.

While dolt status provides a comprehensive overview of the working directory, it only reflects changes relative to the current HEAD of the branch. It does not show changes that exist only in other branches until you switch to them. It also won't reflect changes that are not saved to the working directory (e.g., pending database transactions that haven't been materialized to Dolt's working set).

dolt status typically organizes its output into several distinct sections:
Untracked tables: Lists tables that exist in your working directory but are not yet tracked by Dolt's version control. These can be added using dolt add <table-name>.
Tables/schema to be committed: Shows changes (data or schema) that have been staged using dolt add and are ready to be included in the next commit.
Changes not staged for commit: Displays modifications to existing, tracked tables or schema that have not yet been added to the staging area. These changes can be staged using dolt add <table-name>.
Unmerged paths: (Less common for simple usage) If a merge conflict occurs, this section will list tables with conflicts that need to be resolved before committing.

The dolt status command is an integral part of the Dolt database system, which was first publicly released by DoltHub in 2018. As Dolt aims to be a Git-like version control system for data, the design and functionality of dolt status were heavily influenced by Git's widely adopted git status command. Its inclusion from the early stages of Dolt's development underscores the importance of transparently tracking and managing data changes within a versioned database environment. Its evolution has mirrored the overall development of Dolt, improving its output clarity and performance.

git status(1), dolt add(1), dolt commit(1), dolt diff(1), dolt log(1)