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.gitignore Best Practices: What to Ignore & Why

The definitive .gitignore guide: what to include, language-specific patterns, global gitignore, and common mistakes.

Always Ignore

# Dependencies\nnode_modules/\nvendor/\n.venv/\n\n# Build output\ndist/\nbuild/\n*.pyc\n\n# Environment\n.env\n.env.local\n\n# IDE\n.vscode/\n.idea/\n*.swp\n\n# OS\n.DS_Store\nThumbs.db

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