Ignore files with `.gitignore`

A .gitignore file defines patterns for files Git should not report as untracked. Place it at the repository root for project-wide rules.

Common patterns

# Python cache and virtual environments
__pycache__/
.venv/

# Environment files and local secrets
.env
.env.*

# Build output
dist/
build/

Pattern	Matches
`*.log`	Log files in any directory
`/dist/`	Root-level `dist` directory
`**/generated/`	Any directory named `generated`
`!keep.log`	Re-includes a matching path after a broader rule

Check why a path is ignored:

git check-ignore -v <path>

Ignored does not mean untracked

.gitignore does not affect files already committed. Remove a tracked file from the index while keeping it locally with git rm --cached <file>.

For personal machine-specific rules, use .git/info/exclude instead of changing the shared .gitignore.