.gitignore

The purpose of .gitignore

• node_modules is something we never code
• We don’t want to share our app with team members as it is huge
• We can easily generate it with $ npm install ($ npm i - shortcut)
• So when you pull github projects you’ll never see node_modules

• So you need to create a .gitignore file with node_modules inside it

  • This keeps nodemodules in your project locally but makes sure git ignores it and when you push your files to github, nodemodules doesn’t go with the other files
  • When team members clone your project and pull the latest files, they won’t see node_modules
  • To get it in their repo, they just $ npm install and all the dependencies listed in package.json will be installed on your team member’s local machine
  • You don’t need to specify the version numbers because all of that info lives in package.json
  • This saves us and our team a ton of time passing our project around

Test it out

• Delete package-lock.json and node_modules
• Type $ npm install
• You will see your node_modules directory is created as well as a fresh new copy of package-lock.json