Template .gitignore file for WordPress projects

.gitignore

# This is a template .gitignore file for git-managed WordPress projects.
#
# Fact: you don't want WordPress core files, or your server-specific
# configuration files etc., in your project's repository. You just don't.
#
# Solution: stick this file up your repository root (which it assumes is
# also the WordPress root directory) and add exceptions for any plugins,
# themes, and other directories that should be under version control.
#
# See the comments below for more info on how to add exceptions for your
# content. Or see git's documentation for more info on .gitignore files:
# http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitignore.html

# Ignore everything in the root except the "wp-content" directory.
/*
!.gitignore
!wp-content/

# Ignore everything in the "wp-content" directory, except the "plugins"
# and "themes" directories.
wp-content/*
!wp-content/plugins/
!wp-content/themes/

# Ignore everything in the "plugins" directory, except the plugins you
# specify (see the commented-out examples for hints on how to do this.)
wp-content/plugins/*
# !wp-content/plugins/my-single-file-plugin.php
# !wp-content/plugins/my-directory-plugin/

# Ignore everything in the "themes" directory, except the themes you
# specify (see the commented-out example for a hint on how to do this.)
wp-content/themes/*
# !wp-content/themes/my-theme/

Why you don't want WordPress core files in your project's repository?

If you have a local development environment don't you want to track the code of Wordpress? How can you then clone the code on your live server if you ignore core files?

You can see A collection of useful .gitignore templates and here is a WordPress.gitignore file.

@jabes you are right !
I also removed the trailing slashes to get it up and running

This is what I was looking for, thanks a bunch

Thank you, this was a good starting point for me to understand how to keep WP files properly controlled in a git repository.

Hi, don't understand why not to keep images in version control.

Read here that

The problem is that when you’re working with other developers, they’ll all have their own copies of the site database, so if you upload an image to your local development version and then commit it to the Git repository, the next time another developer pulls the repository they’ll have an orphaned image in their wp-content/uploads folder without an reference in their database. Not good. To avoid this we keep the entire uploads directory out of version control.

But, what is the alternative for website developed by multiple developers in parallel?
What's wrong with pushing and pulling db and code changes? Suppose that website users don't upload anything to uploads folder. So uploads folder is only read by its viewers.

Is ignoring uploads folder can be viewed as best practice and version controlling it - always a bad practice? Or each website is unique, etc...

Regards

P.S. Read somewhere that images is data, not code. So it should be treated like that and not version controlled. But then, additional procedure is needed for managing images repository somewhere else and checking if it's updated on each git pull by a developer. Moreover deploy to staging/production should be hooked on this procedure as well.
Or i miss something?

/*
!wp-content
wp-content/*
!wp-content/themes
wp-content/themes/*
!wp-content/themes/theme

Great 👏

Lovely...Just what was needed!

Thank you sir!