let aiderignore use info/exclude

[Konfekt]

Issue

aiderignore suggests to edit the project-wide gitignore to exlude .aider.* files; however not every user must use aider as it is not a build requirement. For personal setup, use .git/info/exclude instead

Version and model info

No response

[fry69]

Thank you for filing this issue.

If I understand your question/suggestion correctly, you do not want to have to put the .aider.* entry in every project .gitignore which you use aider for, correct?

You can create a global gitignore file (e.g. ~/.config/git/ignore and put

.aider.*

in it, then those files will get automatically ignored in every project, without the need to put this entry into every project.gitignore file, also aider will not bother you about this anymore.

[Konfekt]

It's just that it is bad practice to spam a common .gitignore files with your personal setup, like files produced by your IDE or command-line tools, and aider should rather facilitate best than bad practice. A global personal .gitignore is a work-around but I am still under the impression that .gitignore is rather for build artifacts.

[paul-gauthier]

Aider won't modify an existing .gitignore file without asking you first.

[Konfekt]

That's good, point is that even better would be asking about modifying info/exclude instead of .gitignore. Even if of all repo users agree on Aider being an indispensable build tool, it's still rather meant for build output artifacts.

[paul-gauthier]

Aider won't offer to modify .gitignore if you add .aider* to .git/info/exclude or to .gitignore_global.

[Konfekt]

That's good for those who got it right from the start, though the help entry for --gitignore read as if those who did not add them there would be led astray (by proposing an entry to .gitignore first by default).