Git Ignore Instructions
The following pages discuss how to set up the .gitignore file in a GitHub repository.
What is a .gitignore file?
A .gitignore file is how we tell Git to ignore certain files or folders in a repository. The .gitignore file is essentially just a list of all of the files and folders in a repository that aren’t necessary to keep track of.
As an extreme example, consider a situation where we have a model in a repository that generates 500 MB of results, status files, etc for every simulation. This repository would become very large very quickly if we did not tell Git to ignore these generated files.
We ignore those generated files with the .gitignore file in the root folder of the repository.
How do I update the .gitignore file?
The .gitignore file is just a plain text file so it can be updated in any text editor that you would like.
The following links provide instructions for updating .gitignore files for specific projects.