This is a nice quality-of-life feature in git that should help you avoid
accidentally discarding changes that won't be retrievable.
❯ git rm .tool-versions
error: the following file has local modifications:
.tool-versions
(use --cached to keep the file, or -f to force removal)My .tool-versions file has some local changes. I don't realize that and I go
to issue a git rm command on that file. Instead of quietly wiping out my
changes, git lets me know I'm doing something destructive (these local
changes won't be in the diff or the reflog).
I can force the removal if I know what I'm doing with the -f flag. Or I can
take the two step approach of calling git restore on that file and then git rm.
The --cached flag is also interesting because it doesn't actually delete the
file from my file system, but it does stage the file deletion with git. That
means the file now shows up as one of my untracked files.
See man git-rm for more details.