This week's tip of the week is the gitignore CLI.
Sure, when you spin up a new Next.js or Vite project, you get a .gitignore file automatically. But what about when you're building something from scratch? A quick script, an MCP server, a custom tool, or experimenting with a new language?
You could Google "python gitignore", copy-paste from GitHub, or hunt through old projects. Or you could run one command:
npx gitignore python
Boom. You get a comprehensive .gitignore file with all the standard exclusions for Python projects: pycache/, *.pyc, .env, virtual environments, the works.
Want to start a Node project without a framework?
npx gitignore node
Need to mix languages? Stack them:
❯ npx gitignore node python
Created .gitignore file for flag type node,python.It supports 60+ languages and frameworks: Go, Rust, Java, Ruby, Swift, even Terraform and WordPress. You can see the full list by running npx gitignore -types.
❯ npx gitignore -types
Fetching available types...
AL
Actionscript
Ada
AdventureGameStudio
Agda
Android
Angular
AppEngine
AppceleratorTitanium
...I use this constantly when building small tools or templates. Be sure to give the gitignore project a star!
That's it! Short and sweet. Until the next one!
