If I delete a bunch of files and just want to stage the deleted ones, I can use xargs to add them:
$ git ls-files --deleted | xargs git add
Example output:
$ git status
deleted: lib/to/deleted_1.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_2.txt
modified lib/that/changed_1.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_3.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_4.txt
modified lib/that/changed_2.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_5.txt
modified lib/that/changed_3.txt
$ git ls-files --deleted | xargs git add
Changes to be committed:
deleted: lib/to/deleted_1.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_2.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_3.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_4.txt
deleted: lib/to/deleted_5.txt
Changes not staged for commit:
modified lib/that/changed_1.txt
modified lib/that/changed_2.txt
modified lib/that/changed_3.txt