There are a few commands in git that allow you to do a dry run. That is, git will tell you the effects of executing a command without actually executing that command.

For instance, if you are clearing out untracked files, you can double check what files are going to be deleted with the dry run flag, like so:

$ git clean -fd --dry-run
Would remove tmp.txt
Would remove stuff/

Similarly, if you want to check in which files a commit is going to be incorporated, you can:

$ git commit --dry-run --short
M  README.md
A  new_file.rb

Try running git commit --dry-run (that is, without the --short flag). Look familiar? That is the same output you are getting from git status.