What happens when you forget .gitignore

Someone pushes their AWS secret key to GitHub, and within minutes, bots pick it up and rack up a massive bill. It's a well-known story among engineers. A single line in .gitignore is what stands between you and that kind of disaster.

The good news: you don't have to write .gitignore from scratch. When you create a repository on GitHub, you can choose a template tailored to your language or framework. Node.js, Python, Unity, and most major environments are covered.

Start with a template, then grow it as your project evolves.