git

.gitignore tells git which files to never track in the first place — build output, dependency folders, editor swap files, local secrets. Without one, a single careless git add . can commit gigabytes of node_modules/ or, worse, a .env file full of real credentials straight into history — where getting it back out means rewriting that history, not just deleting the file.

.gitignore sample file

create .gitignore in the root of your project and add the following content. Note: a "#" is only treated as a comment when it's the first character of the line — a trailing "# comment" after a pattern is NOT stripped and becomes part of the literal pattern, so it will silently stop matching anything. Put comments on their own line.



# Ignore compiled executables and object files
*.exe
*.o
*.obj

# Ignore temporary files and editor backups
*~
*.bak
*.tmp
# macOS specific
.DS_Store
# Windows specific
Thumbs.db

# Ignore specific directories
build/
dist/
node_modules/
vendor/

# Ignore log files
*.log

# Ignore sensitive configuration files
config.local.js
.env

# Ignore specific file types anywhere in the project
*.zip
*.tar.gz

# Exception: don't ignore important.log even if other .log files are ignored
!important.log

# Ignore everything in the 'data' directory except for 'data/important_data.csv'
/data/*
!/data/important_data.csv

git

.gitignore sample file

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