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).

[Konfekt]

For example, I start in aider in a new repo and it says

$ aider
Add .aider* to .gitignore (recommended)? (Y)es/(N)o [Yes]:    

The point I was trying to make that this is not to be recommended.

Instead, I'd gladly add them to .git/info/exclude instead, if for matter of fact, it hadn't already happened as I added them there in the git template folder.

So my advice is to document this and let the user decide instead of aider pushing for it.

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been labelled stale because it has been open for 2 weeks with no activity. Remove stale label or add a comment to keep this issue open. Otherwise, it will be closed in 7 days.

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue was closed because it has been stalled for 3 weeks with no activity. Feel free to add a comment here and we can re-open it. Or feel free to file a new issue any time.

[Konfekt]

¯\(ツ)/¯

[PrashamTrivedi]

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

Hi @paul-gauthier

Looks like aider doesn't respect that.

Step1: When I run cat .git/info/exclude

The result is

# git ls-files --others --exclude-from=.git/info/exclude
# Lines that start with '#' are comments.
# For a project mostly in C, the following would be a good set of
# exclude patterns (uncomment them if you want to use them):
# *.[oa]
# *~
# *aider*
.aider*

When running aider, it still asks for .aider* and .env to gitignore...

[Konfekt]

Just

## Enable/disable adding .aider* to .gitignore (default: True)
gitignore: false

as a new default would work for now

[paul-gauthier]

Aider looks to be sure that .aider* and .env are excluded. It honors any way that git supports such exclusions:

(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ git init
(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ echo '.aider*' > .git/info/exclude
(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ echo '.env' >> .git/info/exclude
(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ aider
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Aider v0.62.2.dev
Main model: claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022 with diff edit format, infinite output
Weak model: claude-3-5-haiku-20241022
Git repo: .git with 0 files
Repo-map: using 1024 tokens, auto refresh
Use /help <question> for help, run "aider --help" to see cmd line args
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
>

[PrashamTrivedi]

Aider looks to be sure that .aider* and .env are excluded. It honors any way that git supports such exclusions:

(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ git init
(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ echo '.aider*' > .git/info/exclude
(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ echo '.env' >> .git/info/exclude
(aider) macbook:...tmp/new$ aider
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Aider v0.62.2.dev
Main model: claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022 with diff edit format, infinite output
Weak model: claude-3-5-haiku-20241022
Git repo: .git with 0 files
Repo-map: using 1024 tokens, auto refresh
Use /help <question> for help, run "aider --help" to see cmd line args
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
>

Thanks for the work @paul-gauthier . I believe this is available in master branch build, in that case I will check it tomorrow (around 12 hours from now).

[paul-gauthier]

This should be working this way in the released version.

[karlb]

Aider looks to be sure that .aider* and .env are excluded. It honors any way that git supports such exclusions:

This is not true for me in aider 0.73.0.

> git status --ignored
On branch master
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Ignored files:
  (use "git add -f <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
	.aider.chat.history.md
	.aider.input.history
	.aider.tags.cache.v3/
	smu
	smu.o

nothing to commit, working tree clean
> aider
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Add .aider* to .gitignore (recommended)? (Y)es/(N)o [Yes]:         

I use a global gitignore, so at least https://github.com/Aider-AI/aider/issues/3072 is still open.