Since this questions is about finding the *count* of changes, there are a couple git commands that do this natively, without having to add `| wc -l` to your command

You can use [`git diff`][1] with the following args:

* [`--stat`][2] - generate a diffstat
* [`--numstat`][3] - shows number of added and deleted lines in decimal notation
* [`--shortstat`][4] - only the last line of the --stat

```bash
$ git diff --stat

src/models/models.ts | 5 +++++
src/utils/git.ts     | 9 ++++++---
2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
```

```bash
$ git diff --numstat

5       0       src/models/models.ts
6       3       src/utils/git.ts
```

```bash
$ git diff --shortstat

2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
```

[1]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-diff
[2]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-diff#Documentation/git-diff.txt---statltwidthgtltname-widthgtltcountgt
[3]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-diff#Documentation/git-diff.txt---numstat
[4]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-diff#Documentation/git-diff.txt---shortstat

How can I find out the number of modified files in the index? That is to say, files that show as "modified" when running `git status`.

I know lots of visual git tools that do this, as well as shell add-ons that show the count next to the prompt, but I just don't see how to do it on the command line in a reasonable way.

Number of modified files in git index

Answer