Respect .git/info/exclude in addition to .gitignore

[weilbith]

Hey 👋🏾

Thank you very much for this nice tool! It is great to see how it develops.

A problem I stumble over is the ignoring of developer local files. So I usually have a few files I don't want to be checked-in to the VCS, but as it is a "personal" thing, I add them to .git/info/exclude (see documentation) rather than polluting the shared .gitignore file. As knip already respects the .gitignore file, it would be amazing if it could to the same for the .git/info/exclude file too. As I don't wanna add these ignore patterns to .gitignore I don't wanna add them to knip it's ignore configuration either.
Right now I always have issues because knip complains in my git hooks and I can't rely on your amazing autofixing.

Happy to discuss this idea further. 🙃
Thanks in advance!

[webpro]

Thanks @weilbith!

I didn't know about .git/info/exclude, that looks useful indeed.

For now, you could consider using a dynamic knip.ts, read .git/info/exclude, and its items to knip ignore patterns (or as negated entry/project patterns).

[weilbith]

Wow, that was a fast reply! 😱
Thank you very much!

Ah, cool. That actually sounds like a sound idea!
I'll implement that for now. Do you think it will make it as a feature upstream? Should I contribute a PR?

---

In case someone stumbles across this issue and it is not (yet) implemented upstream, here is my version of adding it to my knip.ts configuration:

import { readFile } from "fs/promises";
import type { KnipConfig } from "knip";

// TODO: Remove once feature was implemented upstream.
async function readGitInfoExcludePatterns(): Promise<string[]> {
  const buffer = await readFile(".git/info/exclude");
  return buffer
    .toString("utf-8")
    .split(/\r\n|\r|\n/)
    .filter((line) => !!line.trim())
    .filter((line) => !line.startsWith("#"))
    .map((line) => (line.endsWith("/") ? `${line}**` : line));
}

export default async function composeConfiguration(): Promise<KnipConfig> {
  const gitInfoExcludePatterns = await readGitInfoExcludePatterns();

  return {
    ignore: [
      ...gitInfoExcludePatterns,
      // ... more patterns
    ],
    // ... more configuration
  };
}

[webpro]

Thanks for sharing your solution!

Feel free to give this a shot. That part of the code is here: https://github.com/webpro/knip/blob/main/packages/knip/src/util/globby.ts#L59

[weilbith]

Feel free to give this a shot. That part of the code is here: https://github.com/webpro/knip/blob/main/packages/knip/src/util/globby.ts#L59

Hui, that's a function 😄
Let me see. Thinking about how to integrate it best. Because the current logic seem to be quite evolved, acting on various levels including the search for .gitignore files, while there is always only a single .git/info/exclude. 🤔

[webpro]

Maybe you could consider something like moving everything inside the if clause of entryFilter to a separate function and call that function once for .git/info/exclude.

[webpro]

@weilbith Is this still something you fancy picking up? I have absolutely no hurries with this one, just checking up.

[weilbith]

@webpro I'm theoretically up for it. Just the typical excuse that I'm more than busy right now. Just became father and don't have the time anymore to do such things in my free time anymore. Sorry. 😕
And as the solution above works atm. the pressure is low. 🙈

[webpro]

🚀 This issue has been resolved in v5.14.0. See Release 5.14.0 for release notes.

Using Knip in a commercial project? Please consider sponsoring me.

[webpro]

Thanks @weilbith! Wishing you good health for everyone ❤️

[weilbith]

Thank you so much! My configuration just got more lean. 😊