Having problems understanding the ignore setup.

[Ekopalypse]

Current version

home>git -v
git version 2.44.0.windows.1

running on windows 10 x64

The current setup should ignore everything except python files.

home>more .gitignore
# Ignore everything
*

# but not python files
!*.py
!**/*.py

but that would be ignored

home>git check-ignore -v abc/xyz.py
.gitignore:2:*  abc/xyz.py

and python files in the root are tracked by the wrong rule

home>git check-ignore -v xyz.py
.gitignore:6:!**/*.py   xyz.py

What am I missing?

[agammann]

* also ignores abc/ itself. Git cannot re-include abc/xyz.py while its parent directory remains ignored. Use:

*
!*/
!*.py
!.gitignore

!*/ keeps directories traversable, and the slashless !*.py matches Python files at any depth, so !**/*.py is redundant. The final line lets you commit .gitignore itself. Also, git check-ignore -v xyz.py showing a rule beginning with ! means xyz.py is not ignored; the last matching rule wins. I reproduced both results with your original rules using Git for Windows 2.44.0.windows.1, then verified that this replacement leaves root and nested .py files untracked while a nested .txt stays ignored.

[Ekopalypse]

Does it - thank you very much