error: cannot pull with rebase: You have unstaged changes.

error: cannot pull with rebase: You have unstaged changes. means Git will not start a rebase while tracked files have uncommitted edits. Commit the work, stash it, or let Git stash it for you with git pull --rebase --autostash. Untracked files do not trigger the error.

Reproduce it

A remote with a file, a clone, a new commit on the remote, then an uncommitted edit in the clone.

git init -q -b main up
git -C up config user.email a@example.com
git -C up config user.name A
echo one > up/f
git -C up add f
git -C up commit -q -m base
git clone -q up cl
echo two > up/g
git -C up add g
git -C up commit -q -m more
cd cl
echo edit >> f
git pull --rebase 2>&1 | grep '^error: cannot'
exit ${PIPESTATUS[0]}

error: cannot pull with rebase: You have unstaged changes.

Fixes

To make autostash the default for rebases, run git config --global rebase.autoStash true. If the stash cannot be re-applied cleanly, Git reports a conflict and keeps the stash entry, so nothing is lost.