Git only tracks files, not directories, but sometimes you need to “track” a directory to ensure it exists in fresh clones, like an output folder.

A common pattern seen is using an empty .gitkeep file in this directory — but this requires editing two places (the .gitkeep and your main .gitignore), and if you rename the directory it’s easy to forget to update the ignore rules.

The approach I use instead is summarised nicely here by Adam Johnson: use a .gitignore file inside the directory itself, containing * to ignore everything, then !.gitignore to un-ignore the file so it gets committed. This keeps the directory tracked with a single standard file that survives renames.

Here’s a nice little alias I threw together in my ~/.gitconfig for this:

[alias]
    ignore = "!f() { \
        dir=\"${1:-.}\"; \
        if [ ! -d $dir ]; then \
            echo directory $dir not found ; \
            exit 1; \
        fi; \
        gitignore=\"$dir/.gitignore\"; \
        echo $gitignore; \
        if [ ! -f $gitignore ]; then \
            touch $gitignore; \
            if [ $dir != '.' ]; then \
                echo '*\n!.gitignore' >> $gitignore; \
            fi; \
        fi; \
        $EDITOR $gitignore; \
    }; f"

Usage

# Create .gitignore in current directory
git ignore

# Create .gitignore in a specific directory
git ignore build/

It creates the file with the two-line pattern from Adam’s post, then opens it in your editor so you can make any adjustments