How to check IntelliJ project into version control?

[dhalperi]

For our open source project https://github.com/batfish/batfish, we would like to check in project configuration like shared scopes, run configurations, format settings, required plugins, etc. But I can't figure out how to get this to work.

(Draft: https://github.com/batfish/batfish/compare/master...dhalperi:idea , which also deletes the old Maven .idea project)

Following the IntelliJ instructions for directory-based projects, I checked in the recommended XML and IML files.

However, when we

1. Open the project in IntelliJ it recognizes .ijwb/.idea (and I trusted it)

   but does not turn on Bazel mode

   

2. Import the project as a new Bazel project, but of course it fails at import

   

I see hints that this is expected to work

• https://blog.bazel.build/2019/09/29/intellij-bazel-sync.html#portability-of-the-ijwb-directory says that at least some of the files can be checked in, and refers to IDEA's instructions. I'd expect process 1 to work?

Has anyone made this work / what are we missing?