Git - How to automatically ignore a file after a clone?

Question

I would know if there is a way to include a file in a repo, but that it is automatically ignored after the user cloned the repo..

It would be great for configuration

Answer 1

There are several options:

Add the file to .gitignore file

This will ignore the file and any changes made to it.

--assume-unchaged

Raise the --assume-unchaged flag on this file so it will stop tracking changes on this file

--[no-]assume-unchanged

When this flag is specified, the object names recorded for the paths are not updated.

Instead, this option sets/unsets the assume unchanged bit for the paths.

When the assume unchanged bit is on, the user promises not to change the file and allows Git to assume that the working tree file matches what is recorded in the index. If you want to change the working tree file, you need to unset the bit to tell Git. This is sometimes helpful when working with a big project on a filesystem that has very slow lstat(2) system call (e.g. cifs).

Git will fail (gracefully) in case it needs to modify this file in the index e.g. when merging in a commit; thus, in case the assumed-untracked file is changed upstream, you will need to handle the situation manually.

Answer 2

One way is to run git update-index --assume-unchanged filename.txt

Another way is to commit template versions of the files, do your clone, copy the templates and have the copied files in your .gitignore.

Unfortunately both approaches require you to do something after cloning.