Add npm init option to generate a .gitignore file containing node_modules

[sdavids]

Add an npm init option to generate a .gitignore file containing node_modules.

Either via a CLI option or an npm config flag.

Something along the lines of npm init --generate-gitignore

The generated (or updated) .gitignore file would have an entry:

node_modules/

This could even be the default going forward.

[ljharb]

The default gitignore file that github generates has node_modules in it already (assuming you tell it "node" when you create a new repo). It seems strange for npm init to do git stuff.

[sdavids]

Not everyone uses GitHub…

(assuming you tell it "node" when you create a new repo)

$ gh repo create test --private -g node
HTTP 422: Repository creation failed. (https://api.github.com/user/repos)
gitignore_template is an unknown gitignore template.

Well, now one has to look into the doc again, after remembering to set the flag in the first place.

https://cli.github.com/manual/gh_repo_create

Doesn't tell the available templates … so further down the rabbit hole…

https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/getting-started-with-git/ignoring-files

GitHub maintains an official list of recommended .gitignore files for many popular operating systems, environments, and languages in the "github/gitignore" public repository.

https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/main/Node.gitignore

⇓

$ gh repo create test --private -g Node

Now one has a .gitignore file containing 130 lines—yay! 😉

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If you want to be fancy, npm init could execute git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree and if true then create the .gitignore with node_modules/

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Yes, not everyone uses git. And yes, why should one tool create configuration for another tool.

But I would wager the absolute majority of npm projects are versioned via git.

[ljharb]

Yes, those 130 lines are ideal.

[wesleytodd]

I am pretty sure the roadmap here is to move project initialization beyond the most bare bones package.json out of npm cli. A few folks have made very slow progress on this plan here: pkgjs/create-pkg#7

At one point there was a pretty general agreement that someone other than the npm cli team should own the setup and let the npm team focus on more important aspects of what npm does. I believe that goal is still well shared with the npm team (I just don't want to directly speak for them).

As part of that work I created this which might suite your needs a bit. In the long run our goal is for you to be able to run npm init pkg and get all the stuff from that diagram in the issue posted above.

So all this is to say, I don't think npm adding this to the base npm init is the right technical direction for them to take.

[wesleytodd]

I looked at that repo and realized it needed some love, so just pushed the 1.0.0 branch with mostly updated things. Ideally I will get around to automating the upkeep of this soon, I just started with the create-package-json package first since that is seeing some good active work with the package metadata collab space.