How to stop copy-paste and make .gitignore globally?

Introduction

Hey! 👋 How're you today? Another "quick how to" article is here. I tell you some useful feature for your productivity with everyday coding and working with git.

What is .gitignore file?

Follow official description:

A gitignore file specifies intentionally un-tracked files that Git should ignore [...]

It means, .gitignore is your best friend, if you're don't want to push personal/environment/etc. files to your team's project repository on GitHub.

What's actually included to your .gitignore file at every project?

Yep, both you and I, copy these lines from project to project, like a mantra:

# OS specific
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db

# IDE
.idea/
.vscode/

# Node.js dependencies
node_modules/

# Node.js logs
*.log

# Builds
build/
dist/

# ...

And it's normal for all git beginners. But you can’t be a newbie all your life! It's time to grow and apply the best solution 👇

DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself)

In this complex world, it's so difficult to find a simple solution, but not for this task! We can define all of this "always copy-pasted lines" to global .gitignore file on your system.

Steps to reproduce

• First, copy (for the last time, I promise) needed ignoring files and folders to your home directory ~/.gitignore_global:

$ sudo cat >~/.gitignore_global <<EOL

# OS specific
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db

# IDE
.idea/
.vscode/

# Node.js dependencies
node_modules/

# Node.js logs
*.log

# Builds
build/
dist/

EOL

• Second, add .gitignore_global file to git config:

$ git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

• Finally, send link to this article to your teammates.

It's enough! Do this once and forget about excess files commits and copy-paste the same lines to .gitignore forever! 👍

Photo by

[Title] Yancy Min https://unsplash.com/photos/842ofHC6MaI
[1] Joshua Aragon https://unsplash.com/photos/EaB4Ml7C7fE

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