How to Create a React .gitignore File

A guide to creating optimal .gitignore files for React, Next.js, and Create React App projects.

React Build Artifacts

React applications compile into optimized static assets. You should always ignore the build/ directory (or .next/ if using Next.js) so generated code is not tracked.

Node Modules and Environment Files

Like all Node.js projects, React projects must ignore node_modules/ and .env files containing frontend API keys.

Framework Specifics

If you are using Next.js, ensure you ignore .next/ and out/. For Gatsby, ignore .cache/ and public/.