In Git, “staging” refers to adding changes to the staging area, which is a sort of “pre-commit” zone. It’s a place where you can group together parts of a change into a commit. When you stage a file, you are preparing it for a commit.

“Committing” is the process of saving your changes to the local repository. When you commit, Git takes the changes from the staging area and stores a snapshot of these changes as a commit in the repository.

You should use “stage” when you want to add changes to your next commit. If you have multiple changes and you want to commit them separately, you can stage the changes for each commit separately.

You should use “commit” when you are ready to save your staged changes to the repository.

“Stashing” is a way to save changes that you don’t want to commit immediately. You can use it to temporarily save changes that you want to reapply later.

In Visual Studio Code, you can use the Git features in the Source Control pane. To stage changes, click on the “+” icon next to the file in the Source Control pane. To commit, write a commit message and then click the checkmark icon. To stash changes, you can use the “…” menu in the Source Control pane and choose “Stash”, then “Stash All Changes”.

Here is a step-by-step plan:

1. Open the Source Control pane in Visual Studio Code.
2. Stage your changes by clicking the “+” icon next to the files you want to stage.
3. Write a commit message in the text box at the top.
4. Commit your changes by clicking the checkmark icon.
5. If you have changes you want to save for later, click the “…” menu, then “Stash”, then “Stash All Changes”.

For the next steps, you might want to push your commits to the remote repository, or apply your stashed changes when you are ready to work on them.