[KPGv2]

That's a hack. What you should do is a .gitignore with * and then a whitelist of paths like src/**/*.

If you rely on `add -f` you will forget to commit something important.

For example, for a tree sitter grammar I developed a couple years ago, here is my .gitignore:

```

# Ignore everything

*

# Top-level whitelist

CHANGELOG.md

# Allow git to see inside subdirectories

!*/

# Whitelist the grammar and tests

!/grammar/*.js

!/test/corpus/*.txt

# Whitelist any grammar and tests in subdirectories

!/grammar/**/*.js

!/test/corpus/**/*.txt

```*

[beej71]

> If you rely on `add -f` you will forget to commit something important.

But isn't the idea in TFA to blacklist the entire `build/` tree? We don't want to add anything there.

[KPGv2]

I have much more than `build` to block. IDE-specific stuff, smalls scripts I write to help me (and go in root) but don't belong in the repo, etc.

And what if for some reason you accidentally copied a big Linux ISO to that directory by mistake. Without a whitelist, you might accidentally add and commit a 700MB file to your main and not even notice. What a pain when you push later and have to git amend, rebase -i, etc.

Better to block all except whitelist. The only downside is it's less obvious how to do this than allowing all except blacklist to new git users.