What Is .gitignore Generator?
.gitignore Generator creates properly configured .gitignore files for your projects. Select your languages, frameworks, IDEs, and operating systems, and the tool generates a comprehensive ignore list covering build artifacts, dependency directories, environment files, and system junk files.
How to Use This Tool
Select your tech stack from the categories — languages (Python, JavaScript, Java, etc.), frameworks (React, Django, Rails), editors (VS Code, IntelliJ, Vim), and OS (macOS, Windows, Linux). The tool combines the appropriate ignore patterns and generates a complete .gitignore file. Copy or download the result. Everything runs in your browser.
Why Use .gitignore Generator?
Starting a project without a proper .gitignore leads to accidentally committing node_modules, .env files, build artifacts, and OS junk files. This tool generates a thorough, battle-tested ignore file in seconds, covering edge cases you’d forget manually. It’s free, instant, and requires no account. For a detailed walkthrough, see our step-by-step guide.
Common Use Cases
Bootstrapping a new repo where you want to skip the "commit, push, realize you shipped node_modules by accident" cycle. Joining an existing repo that lacks a .gitignore and noticing IDE config, OS metadata, and build artifacts keep landing in pull requests. Switching stacks — a Python service rewritten in Go needs different ignores, and copying the old file forward leaves stale patterns that confuse future contributors.
Combining stacks on a polyrepo or monorepo: a Next.js front end plus a Rails back end plus Terraform infra each contribute their own ignore patterns, and the union needs to be deduplicated to stay readable. The generator's add-more-stacks flow is built for exactly this case, with cross-template deduplication so you don't see .DS_Store repeated four times across four sections.
How We Compare
GitHub's gitignore template repository has the canonical templates per language and is the source most generators draw from. The difference is workflow: clicking through GitHub, copying the raw file, and switching back to your editor is several context switches, and combining multiple stacks means doing the merge by hand. Toptal's gitignore.io serves a similar role through a public API.
This generator composes multiple language templates into a single deduplicated file in one screen, with custom additions you can layer on top before download. It runs entirely in the browser, so your stack list and any custom patterns stay local. If you also need to scrub credentials that have already been committed, the gitignore only fixes the next push — the history rewrite is a separate git filter-repo pass.
Worth keeping in mind: .gitignore only stops untracked files from being added. Files already tracked by git keep getting tracked even after their pattern lands in the file. Use git rm --cached to untrack the file, then commit the gitignore change, then re-commit if needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Built by Derek Giordano · Part of Ultimate Design Tools