Git: How to ignore/specify files for *checkout*

Question

If I don\'t want .html files tracked I can add the pattern to .gitignore and they\'ll be ignored. I\'d like to know how I can do the converse - at checkout, how could I ask git

Answer 1

Git's Sparse-Checkout

If you only want to checkout a portion of your repository, you can use git's sparse-checkout option which has powerful include/exclude rules.

The following StackOverflow question has some helpful instructions:
GIT checkout except one folder

But as a summary:

1. Enable the sparseCheckout option:

   git config core.sparseCheckout true
   

2. Create the file called .git/info/sparse-checkout containing:

   /*
   !node_modules
   

   which effectively means include everything except the node_modules directory when checking out a repository into the working directory.