GIT-IGNORE(1)

🎀 NAME

git-ignore — bestie, this adds .gitignore patterns for you, no editor required 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS

git-ignore [<context>] [<pattern> [<pattern>]...]

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💖 DESCRIPTION

It takes the patterns you hand it and appends them to a .gitignore file — but ONLY if that pattern isn't already chillin' in there. No duplicates, no mess, we're not about that life. ✨

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🌸 OPTIONS

context

• -l, --local — sets the context to the .gitignore file in the current working directory. (this is the default, bestie, it just happens)
• -g, --global — sets the context to the global gitignore file for the current user. 🌍
• -p, --private — sets the context to the private exclude file for the repository, aka .git/info/exclude. 🤫

pattern

A space delimited list of patterns to append to the file in context. Yes, space delimited. The shell is doing the splitting, not us. 🫶

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⭐ PATTERN FORMAT

Pattern format as described in the git manual. Not me quoting the git manual, but like… respectfully. 👑

• A blank line matches no files, so it can serve as a separator for readability. To append a blank line use empty quotes "". 📭
• A line starting with # serves as a comment. For example, "# This is a comment".
• An optional prefix ! which negates the pattern; any matching file excluded by a previous pattern will become included again. If a negated pattern matches, this will override lower precedence patterns sources. To use an exclamation ! as command line argument it is best placed between single quotes ''. For example, '!src'.
• If the pattern ends with a slash, it is removed for the purpose of the following description, but it would only find a match with a directory. In other words, foo/ will match a directory foo and paths underneath it, but will not match a regular file or a symbolic link foo (this is consistent with the way how pathspec works in general in git).
• If the pattern does not contain a slash /, git treats it as a shell glob pattern and checks for a match against the pathname relative to the location of the .gitignore file (relative to the top level of the work tree if not from a .gitignore file).
• Otherwise, git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable for consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. For example, "Documentation/*.html" matches "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".
• A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname. For example, "/*.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not "mozilla-sha1/sha1.c".

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🦋 EXAMPLES

Okay so every argument is optional, which means calling git-ignore with literally nothing will show you first the global and then the local gitignore files. Iconic behaviour tbh:

$ git ignore
Global gitignore: /home/alice/.gitignore
# Numerous always-ignore extensions
*.diff
*.err
*.orig
*.rej
*.swo
*.swp
*.vi
*~
*.sass-cache

# OS or Editor folders
.DS_Store
.Trashes
._*
Thumbs.db
---------------------------------
Local gitignore: .gitignore
.cache
.project
.settings
.tmproj
nbproject

If you only want to see the global context use the --global argument (for local use --local):

$ git ignore
Global gitignore: /home/alice/.gitignore
.DS_Store
.Trashes
._*
Thumbs.db

To quickly append a new pattern to the default/local context simply:

$ git ignore *.log
Adding pattern(s) to: .gitignore
... adding '*.log'

You can now configure any patterns without ever using an editor, with a context and pattern arguments: The resulting configuration is also returned for your convenience. Bestie. You never have to open vim for this again. 😭🫶

$ git ignore --local "" "# Temporary files" *.tmp "*.log" tmp/*  "" "# Files I'd like to keep" '!work'  ""
Adding pattern(s) to: .gitignore
... adding ''
... adding '# Temporary files'
... adding 'index.tmp'
... adding '*.log'
... adding 'tmp/*'
... adding ''
... adding '# Files I'd like to keep'
... adding '!work'
... adding ''

Local gitignore: .gitignore

# Temporary files
index.tmp
*.log

# Files I'd like to keep
!work

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👑 AUTHOR

Written by Tj Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca> and Tema Bolshakov <tweekane@gmail.com> and Nick Lombard <github@jigsoft.co.za>

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🐛 REPORTING BUGS

Found a bug? Not the vibe. Tell them here: https://github.com/tj/git-extras/issues

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💜 SEE ALSO

https://github.com/tj/git-extras

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okay that's the whole thing bestie, you ate that 💅✨ this is the git-ignore page from the Git Extras set, dated May 2026 — go forth and ignore files, fr fr 🦋🎀