jcorpac untracked-templates
Purpose
Often, a repository needs an initial data file, SQLite database, or .env file just so clones don't crash on startup. However, you don't want local state updates during development to pollute the Git working tree.
Adding the file to .gitignore will prevent it from being tracked entirely (meaning anyone cloning the repo has to create the file from scratch).
Usage
Use the plumbing command git update-index --assume-unchanged instead.
1. Commit the Baseline Template
Create your blank database or example JSON file. Stage and commit it to git so that it exists in the tree for others.
git add data/local_db.json
git commit -m "chore: add default local database template"
2. Flag as Untracked locally
Run the following command on your machine:
git update-index --assume-unchanged data/local_db.json
Now, whenever your application writes to data/local_db.json, git status will ignore it. Your private local state will never be committed, but the template structure remains safe in the remote repository!
Reversing
If you ever intentionally update the public template structure, you can temporarily reverse the flag:
git update-index --no-assume-unchanged data/local_db.json
Resources
- Git Documentation (update-index)