Suitable `.gitignore` For Node.js

Question

Tree structure

That's how my Node.js project is organized:

/
| - node_modules               [+ INCLUDE]
|   | - my-mod1
|   |   | - node_modules       [- IGNORE]
|   |   |   | - external-mod1 
|   |   |   | - external-mod2 
|   |   | - src
|   |   |   | - node_modules   [+ INCLUDE]
|   |   |   |   | - my-mod2 
|   |   |   |   | - my-mod3
|   | - my-mod4

My plan

When publishing my project to GitHub:

• I want to include my-mods.
• I don't want to include the external-mods.

That means:

• I want to include the top-level /node_modules folder.
• I don't want to include node_modules folders which are direct childs of a module folder.
• But I want to include node_moduels folders which are childs of a src folder.

What I did

I added the following lines to /.gitignore:

#################  
## npm
#################

npm-debug.log
node_modules/
!/node_modules/
!src/node_modules/

My question

Which .gitignore rules do I need to include the right node_modules folders (as described above)?

Thanks - if anything's unclear, please comment.

Solution 1

Since your structure is quite organized you could use this pattern to accomplish the task.

/node_modules/*/node-modules/ 

The above pattern will ignore node_modules under module folders, my-mod1,my-mod4 and others.

The above line will still allow the node_modules under src directory to be included when you push to github.

Solution 2

node_modules/**/node_modules should work for what you are trying to do.

Tip: GitHub provides standard .gitignore's for various languages like Node.

Solution 3

Thanks for your answers.

I rethought the condition and decided to declared the condition the other way - it works perfectly:

node_modules/*/node_modules

I hope this is able to help anybody in the future.

Comments

[fdj815]

Thanks for your answer. - I already knew the github/gitignore repository, but there wasn't anything suitable for my usecase.

[ben.snape]

I thought you probably did but it's always handy to point out :-) did the .gitignore line work for you?

[fdj815]

No, it's a good idea (thanks), but unfortunately didn't handle the ./node_modules inside the src folders correctly. - I tried to define the condition in another way (see my own answer).