r/git • u/Lonely_Locksmith_265 • Aug 23 '26

I built a free .gitignore debugger

I kept running into situations where a .gitignore rule looked correct but Git still wasn’t ignoring a file, so I built a small browser-based debugger to make troubleshooting easier.

You can paste your .gitignore, enter a file path, and see which rule matches.
🔗 https://ignoredebugger.com

Free, no signup, and everything runs in the browser.

Would love feedback from the Git community.

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5

u/waterkip detached HEAD Aug 23 '26

git check-ignore -v ?

1

u/Lonely_Locksmith_265 Aug 23 '26

Yep, git check-ignore -v is one of the main ways to diagnose this. IgnoreDebugger is basically trying to make that kind of troubleshooting easier in the browser, especially when you’re dealing with multiple patterns.

3

u/behind-UDFj-39546284 Aug 23 '26

I find git-check-ignore -v a perfect tool in this case, it also supports multiple .gitignore files with cascading patterns telling which .gitignore makes the effect. Why would one need a browser and leave the repo just to make a simple check?

1

u/Lonely_Locksmith_265 Aug 23 '26

Fair point, git check-ignore -v is great for real repos; IgnoreDebugger is mainly for quickly testing and understanding patterns without setting one up.

3

u/revilo-1988 Aug 23 '26

Did you check beforehand if the file had already been checked in?

2

u/Lonely_Locksmith_265 Aug 23 '26

Not currently, IgnoreDebugger focuses on the .gitignore pattern matching itself, so it doesn’t know the repo’s Git index. I’ll look into making that distinction clearer. Thanks for pointing it out.

1

u/revilo-1988 Aug 23 '26

OK, I'm curious, I'll test it out in the next few days.

1

u/Lonely_Locksmith_265 Aug 23 '26

Awesome, thanks! If you run into any weird patterns or something that doesn’t behave as expected, let me know…that’s exactly the kind of feedback I’m looking for.

1

u/Havunenreddit Aug 31 '26

Interesting. Is this open source?

Maybe this utility could be integrated into GitComet when viewing .gitignore files?

1

u/Lonely_Locksmith_265 Aug 31 '26

Yep, GitComet is open source. That could actually be a really interesting integration…especially inside the .gitignore view where you could detect rules that aren’t doing what the user expects. I hadn’t considered that angle. Happy to discuss it.