Pick languages, frameworks, editors and OS — get a ready .gitignore.
A .gitignore file tells Git which files and folders to keep out of the repository — build artifacts, dependencies, local secrets, IDE configuration files. This tool assembles a ready .gitignore from vetted templates for your exact stack: programming language, code editor, and operating system — no manual searching or copy-pasting from scattered sources.
If a folder like node_modules/ or vendor/ gets committed even once, it stays in the repository's history forever — even after removing the files from the working copy, they're still physically stored in Git objects and bloat every future clone. A correct .gitignore set up before the first commit saves time and repository size for years to come.
node_modules/, vendor/, venv/ — reproducible via a package install command, redundant to store in Gitdist/, build/, target/ — auto-generated from source.env, keys, tokens — should never land in a public or even private repository.idea/, .vscode/ — developer-specific and can conflict across a team.DS_Store (macOS), Thumbs.db (Windows) — created by the file manager, unrelated to the projectAdding a rule doesn't remove already-committed files. Run git rm --cached <file> (or git rm -r --cached . for the whole project), then commit.
Yes, select several categories at once — e.g. Node.js + VSCode + macOS. Rules are merged and duplicate lines removed.
Usually one file at the repo root is enough — rules apply recursively. Separate files are rarely needed, mainly for monorepos.