Troubleshooting — Stage 2: Add Styling

Common Errors

The page looks unstyled after reloading

Cause: The browser cannot find style.css. Either the filename is wrong, the href is wrong, or the file is in a different folder.

Fix: Make sure style.css is in the same folder as index.html and the <link> tag says href="style.css" — no leading slash, no subfolder.

git add . complains "pathspec did not match"

Cause: You ran the command outside the box-runner folder.

Fix: cd box-runner and try again.

The commit includes more files than I expected

Cause: git add . grabs everything that changed in the current folder, including editor backup files or .DS_Store on macOS.

Fix: Run git status before git add to see what will be staged. If you see files you did not mean to commit, stage them individually: git add index.html style.css.

Browser still shows the old styles after editing style.css

Cause: The browser cached the old stylesheet.

Fix: Hard reload. On macOS: Cmd+Shift+R. On Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+R.

FAQ

Why one commit instead of two?

Because the HTML edit and the new CSS file are part of the same change — "I added styling." A commit should represent a single logical change, not a single file. If you made two commits here you would have one broken commit ("linked a CSS file that does not exist") followed by one that fixes it.

Can I split a commit into two later if I want to?

Yes — with git reset and re-staging, or with interactive rebase. That is advanced territory. For now, stage carefully before committing.

Why does git add . include style.css if it was never tracked?

git add means "stage for the next commit." It does not care whether the file was tracked before. New files become tracked the moment you stage them.