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Michael Hosford
Michael Hosford
2,531 Points
Posted by Michael Hosford
Michael Hosford
2,531 Points

Git: what files NOT to track?

Aside from configuration files which contain passwords or other private information, are there other files that generally shouldn't be included in version control tracking?

For example, I have a project that uses jQuery. I'm not going to be making any changes to jQuery, but the project won't work correctly without it. (Of course, it won't work correctly without the aforementioned config file either.) Should I include jQuery (or other "black box" type libraries) in version control?

Thanks in advance-- Michael

P.S. It seems to me that this should have been covered in the Git Basics course. And, while it was useful to know that git-flow exists, I don't think I really needed to take a "challenge" on it. Otherwise, I found the course helpful. :)

Edit: I couldn't figure out how to tag this post as being related to the Git Basics course. How do you do that?

1 Answer

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points
Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

Generally, no you wouldn't track vender library like jQuery. This is where a package manager really comes into play. You could not track the dependencies in Github, but have that staged in the package managers son file, and than a new developer could grab your repo, run a command on their computer to install all of the dependencies and the exact version they need, and than everything would work again. That's typically how it would work.

You can check in dependencies, but its ideal not to.

I think to tag the question to a course, you have to be on the specific lesson first, and than start the question from there.