"git status" recurses only into those dirs where there is managed content. "git diff" restricts its operation to managed files. That said, if you are into mana

"git status" recurses only into those dirs where there is managed content. "git diff" restricts its operation to managed files. That said, if you are into managing particular files and not a file tree, most likely you'd consider all info about other files than the chosen ones to be noise, which can be expressed in .gitignore in a very succinct way: '*'.