Which files/directories to ignore in a Laravel 4 project when using version control?

Question

I have a Laravel 4 project, and I would like to know which files should be ignored when using a version control software such as Git, Mercury or SVN?

The structure of my

Answer 1

You might also want to see the Laravel docs here and here. This discusses how to setup different Laravel configurations for different environments and protect sensitive information. All your .env.local.php type files should not be included in version control. Note that the .env.*.php and .env.php is added in the default Laravel .gitignore file. You can see it here

Answer 2

GitHub has a repository of suggested .gitignore files for almost all kinds of projects at: http://github.com/github/gitignore

Alternatively, you can search it for your project using this handy and extremely useful online tool: http://www.gitignore.io

Answer 3

For reference, that .gitignore file can be found here:

/bootstrap/compiled.php
/vendor
composer.phar
composer.lock  # Remove this one after you create a project
.env.*.php
.env.php
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db

As noted in the below comment, you probably want to commit composer.lock in your project. Laravel ignores it by default so the authors of the laravel/laravel package don't accidently impose packages on you.

Your project should include the composer.lock file so you can install packages of stable versions (via composer install instead of composer update) properly in your production environments.

Answer 4

Note that the config file:

app/config/app.php

Has a cryptographic key in it that wouldn't be great to commit to a repository. Or, at least, the file needs to be overwritten in production.

Answer 5

Laravel has posted their .gitignore on GitHub, which can be found here.

As of today, it looks like this:

/bootstrap/compiled.php
/vendor
composer.phar
composer.lock
.env.*.php
.env.php
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db