manage-gitignore 0.2.0

Build a repository's .gitignore from gitignore.io, keeping its own custom rules — with a Claude Code skill that drives it

manage-gitignore

Build a repository's .gitignore from gitignore.io, writing the template block verbatim and preserving the repo's own custom rules — then review the diff and, with confirmation, commit and push it.

This repository ships one thing: a Claude Code skill, delivered as a Python package. The package is the delivery mechanism — it carries the skill directory and provides the install/uninstall pair that puts it where Claude Code looks. It is not a general-purpose CLI.

Install

pipx install manage-gitignore   # or: pip install manage-gitignore
manage-gitignore install        # symlink the skill into ~/.claude/skills/

Restart Claude Code, and the skill is available. install links rather than copies, so upgrading the package upgrades the skill — no second step, and no chance of the two drifting. manage-gitignore uninstall removes that link again, and refuses to touch anything it did not create: a real directory, or a link pointing somewhere else, is left alone unless you pass --force. Both take --dest if your skills directory is not ~/.claude/skills. Removing the package itself is pipx uninstall manage-gitignore.

install and uninstall are the only commands. Everything else happens through the skill.

Use

Ask Claude Code, in whatever words you would use anyway:

Give this repo a proper .gitignore.

Add Rust and JetBrains ignores.

What does my .gitignore actually cover?

The skill takes it from there: it scans the repository, proposes a template set with the file that justifies each one, asks you to confirm, writes the file preserving your own custom rules, shows you the real diff, and — only with your say-so — commits and pushes it.

The scripts under skill/scripts/ are how the skill does that work. They are its internals, driven by SKILL.md; calling them yourself is not a supported interface and their arguments may change without notice.

Safety properties

This tool writes to your repository and, with your say-so, pushes. Each of these fails closed, and each has a test:

• a response that is not exactly the requested gitignore.io block is never written
• a symlinked, FIFO, or oversized .gitignore is refused, never followed
• the file is re-read and verified after writing (block intact, custom rules present, no ANSI or bidi characters) before success is reported
• a .gitignore created or edited during the fetch is detected, not clobbered
• commit refuses a file whose checksum no longer matches what was verified, and proves the committed blob is that content — not just that the path matched
• a commit touching anything besides .gitignore is reported, never pushed
• push executes only what its own freshly computed plan permits, by explicit refspec, and will not force outside a genuinely diverged branch
• a force-push is leased against the remote sha the user approved, not the tracking ref that push's own git fetch just refreshed
• ext:: remotes and interactive credential prompts are refused outright
• no repo- or API-derived text can forge a line or an escape sequence in the summary

Most of that list came from review rather than from the first draft: this was built with Claude Code, then examined across ten rounds by a nine-agent panel (skill design, Python, testing, application security, shell, documentation, software design, test design, UX), and around 390 findings were applied.

Contributing

Runs on Python 3.10 through 3.14, with no third-party runtime dependencies — standard library only, plus curl and git on PATH.

See CLAUDE.md: repository layout, the rules that hold its shape, build and test commands, and the release process.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.