Courses | Arish – Full Stack Ruby on Rails & React Developer

Ignoring Files in Git

Some files shouldn't be tracked by Git: build outputs, dependencies, secrets, IDE settings. The .gitignore file tells Git which files to ignore.

Creating .gitignore

Create a .gitignore file in your repository root:

bash

1# Create .gitignore
2touch .gitignore
3
4# Add patterns
5echo "node_modules/" >> .gitignore
6echo ".env" >> .gitignore

.gitignore Patterns

Basic Patterns

gitignore

1# Ignore a specific file
2secret.txt
3
4# Ignore all files with extension
5*.log
6*.tmp
7
8# Ignore a directory
9node_modules/
10dist/
11build/

Pattern Syntax

gitignore

1# Comments start with #
2# This is a comment
3
4# Ignore file in root only
5/config.local.js
6
7# Ignore file anywhere
8config.local.js
9
10# Ignore directory
11logs/
12
13# Wildcard - any characters
14*.log
15temp_*
16
17# Single character wildcard
18file?.txt  # file1.txt, fileA.txt, etc.
19
20# Negation - don't ignore
21*.log
22!important.log
23
24# Double asterisk - match directories
25**/logs     # logs anywhere
26logs/**     # everything inside logs
27**/logs/**  # logs anywhere with contents

Common .gitignore Examples

Node.js Project

gitignore

1# Dependencies
2node_modules/
3
4# Build outputs
5dist/
6build/
7
8# Environment files
9.env
10.env.local
11.env.*.local
12
13# Logs
14npm-debug.log*
15yarn-debug.log*
16yarn-error.log*
17
18# IDE
19.vscode/
20.idea/
21
22# OS files
23.DS_Store
24Thumbs.db

Python Project

gitignore

1# Virtual environment
2venv/
3env/
4.venv/
5
6# Python cache
7__pycache__/
8*.py[cod]
9*$py.class
10
11# Distribution
12dist/
13build/
14*.egg-info/
15
16# Environment
17.env
18
19# IDE
20.idea/
21.vscode/
22*.swp

General Web Project

gitignore

1# Dependencies
2node_modules/
3vendor/
4
5# Build
6dist/
7build/
8.cache/
9
10# Environment
11.env
12.env.local
13
14# IDE/Editor
15.vscode/
16.idea/
17*.sublime-*
18
19# OS
20.DS_Store
21Thumbs.db
22
23# Logs
24*.log
25logs/
26
27# Temporary
28tmp/
29temp/
30*.tmp

Ignoring Already Tracked Files

If a file is already tracked, adding it to .gitignore won't work:

bash

1# Remove from tracking (keep the file)
2git rm --cached filename
3
4# For directories
5git rm -r --cached directory/
6
7# Then commit
8git commit -m "Stop tracking filename"

Example

bash

1# Accidentally committed node_modules
2git rm -r --cached node_modules
3echo "node_modules/" >> .gitignore
4git commit -m "Remove node_modules from tracking"

Global .gitignore

Set up patterns to ignore across all repositories:

bash

1# Create global gitignore
2touch ~/.gitignore_global
3
4# Configure Git to use it
5git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

Global Patterns

gitignore

1# OS files
2.DS_Store
3Thumbs.db
4
5# IDE files
6.idea/
7.vscode/
8*.sublime-*
9
10# Editor backups
11*~
12*.swp
13*.swo

Check If File is Ignored

bash

1# Check why a file is ignored
2git check-ignore -v filename
3
4# Output: .gitignore:5:*.log    debug.log
5#         (file:line:pattern   filename)

Template .gitignore Files

GitHub provides templates for different project types:

github.com/github/gitignore

Or use:

bash

1# Using npx (Node.js)
2npx gitignore node
3
4# Creates .gitignore for Node.js projects

Best Practices

1. Create .gitignore First

Before making your first commit:

bash

1git init
2echo "node_modules/" > .gitignore
3echo ".env" >> .gitignore
4git add .gitignore
5git commit -m "Add .gitignore"

2. Don't Ignore Important Files

Never ignore:

Source code
Configuration templates
Documentation
Package manifests (package.json, requirements.txt)

3. Use Templates

Start with a template for your project type and customize.

Summary

The .gitignore file:

✅ Prevents unwanted files from being tracked
✅ Uses pattern matching syntax
✅ Can be global or per-repository
✅ Should be created early in the project

Practice creating .gitignore files in the next exercise!