According to <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitkeeper.com&#x2F;testdrive" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitkeeper.com&#x2F;testdrive</a>:<p>* The -U option to bk tells it to operate on &quot;user files&quot;. That is files that are not part of the BitKeeper metadata<p>* The modifier x corresponds to &quot;extras&quot;, files which Bitkeeper doesn&#x27;t know about (changed files is c)<p>* `new` adds files to the repository<p>* [on commit] the -y option is for changeset comments (~commit messages)<p>So `bk -Ux new` is `git add &lt;untracked files&gt;`[0] and `bk commit -y&quot;thing&quot;` is `git commit -m &quot;thing&quot;`<p>[0] aka `git add $(git ls-files -o --exclude-standard)` or `git add -i&lt;RET&gt; &lt;a&gt; &lt;*&gt; &lt;q&gt;`