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.ritignore

Specify files and directories that Rit should ignore.

Synopsis​

Create a .ritignore file in your repository root to tell Rit which files to ignore when staging, checking status, or showing diffs.

Description​

The .ritignore file uses pattern matching similar to .gitignore. Files and directories matching patterns in .ritignore will be:

  • Excluded from rit add
  • Hidden from rit status (untracked files)
  • Excluded from rit diff

Pattern Format​

Basic Patterns​

  • *.log - Ignore all files ending with .log
  • target/ - Ignore the target directory
  • temp.txt - Ignore a specific file
  • *.tmp - Ignore all .tmp files

Wildcards​

  • * - Matches any sequence of characters (except /)
  • ? - Matches a single character
  • ** - Matches zero or more directories (planned)

Directory Patterns​

  • dir/ - Matches only directories named dir
  • dir/* - Matches all files in dir directory

Negation​

  • !important.log - Un-ignore a file (even if it matches an earlier pattern)

Patterns are processed in order, so later patterns can override earlier ones.

Examples​

Rust Project​

# Compiled files
target/
*.o
*.so
*.dylib

# Cargo
Cargo.lock

# IDE
.idea/
.vscode/
*.swp

# But keep important files
!Cargo.lock

Node.js Project​

node_modules/
*.log
npm-debug.log*
.DS_Store
.env
dist/
build/

Python Project​

__pycache__/
*.py[cod]
*$py.class
*.so
.Python
venv/
env/
.venv

Pattern Rules​

  1. Empty lines and comments - Lines starting with # are ignored
  2. Order matters - Patterns are processed top to bottom
  3. Negation - Patterns starting with ! un-ignore matching files
  4. Directory matching - Patterns ending with / only match directories
  5. Anchored patterns - Patterns not starting with * are anchored to the start

How It Works​

When Rit processes files:

  1. Reads .ritignore from the repository root
  2. Parses patterns line by line
  3. Checks each file/directory against all patterns
  4. If a pattern matches and is not negated, the file is ignored

Integration​

The .ritignore file is automatically used by:

  • rit add - Ignores matching files when staging
  • rit status - Hides ignored files from untracked files list
  • rit diff - Excludes ignored files from diff output

Always Ignored​

The following are always ignored, regardless of .ritignore:

  • .rit/ directory (repository metadata)
  • .ritignore file itself

See Also​

  • add - Stage files
  • status - Show working tree status
  • diff - Show changes