Ask HN: How would you redesign git?

I would change the term "The index" to "The staging area."

So many things, but if I were to pick one, I would add a `git stage` command to work with the staging area (wrongly called "the index").

git stage add (git add), git stage delete (git rm --cached), git stage diff (git diff --cached), git stage edit (not possible today)

That's easy: I'd replace git with mercurial.

Check out Gitless and Sapling.

Name things better