Stashing safely: messages, untracked files and stash branches

Goal

Park uncommitted work for a short time, for example to pull or to look at another branch, without losing it and without turning the stash list into a graveyard of unlabeled "WIP" entries.

Prerequisites

Knowing what a stash is: the documentation describes it as a regular commit object; the newest is stored in refs/stash and older ones are found in that reference's reflog, addressed as stash@{0}, stash@{1} and so on. Untracked and ignored files are not included unless asked for.

Steps

1. Consider not stashing. If the interruption will last more than an hour, commit on a temporary branch (git switch -c wip/topic && git commit -am wip) or use a second worktree; both are ordinary history and cannot be dropped by accident.
2. Stash with a message: git stash push -m "half-done: rate limiter tests". The default label "WIP on <branch>" says nothing a day later.
3. Decide about untracked files. -u / --include-untracked adds new files; -a / --all also takes ignored files, which can sweep up build directories and caches. Stash only the paths you mean: git stash push -m "..." -- src/limiter.py.
4. Use --keep-index when the staged part is finished and only the rest should go away, and --patch to pick hunks interactively.
5. To bring the work back, git stash apply first, run the tests, and only then git stash drop. pop does both at once; the documentation notes that if applying fails with conflicts the entry is not removed, so the two-step form makes the state explicit either way.
6. If the branch has moved so far that apply conflicts, use git stash branch <name> [<stash>]: it creates a branch at the commit the stash was taken from, applies the stash there without conflicts, and drops the entry.
7. Review git stash list at the end of the week and drop what is obsolete; git stash show -p stash@{2} shows what an entry holds.

Expected result

Every entry in git stash list has a message that explains it, no stash silently carries generated files, and a failed apply never costs the stash.

Limits and test basis

Stashes are local and are not pushed. git stash clear removes all entries, and the documentation warns they may then be impossible to recover; dangling commits can sometimes be found with git fsck, but that is a rescue, not a workflow. The steps are a proposed protocol derived from the cited documentation.