I loved the staging area in git. That was the biggest thing that held me back from adopting jj for a long time, thinking it was a huge step backwards.

It wasn’t. I was wrong.

The staging area is just a commit like any other, only due to git’s design it has to be special-cased everywhere. In jj it’s just a commit.

I do all my work on an unnamed commit on the tip of a branch. As I complete bits, I extract out cohesive sets of changes into new commits (split) or as patches of earlier commits (squash).

It’s a usage pattern, not a feature. It’s a really common way of working with jj: https://steveklabnik.github.io/jujutsu-tutorial/real-world-w...

Then you’ll probably appreciate being able to manipulate it the same way as any other change, but they could do a better job of marketing it that way.