What should NOT be under source control?

Question

It would be nice to have a more or less complete list over what files and/or directories that shouldn't (in most cases) be under source control. What do you think should be excluded?

Answer 1

Ignore:

1. Files/directories that your project does not use
2. 90% of the time this is simply code and/or junk output that you forgot to delete
3. Operating system files, etc...
4. Files/directories that you do not need to be in a shared state (files your team doesn't use)
5. Your custom launch settings
6. Any custom project settings really
7. Credentials
8. Files/directories which are generated by your project or another process
9. Any files downloaded via a package manager
10. Any files generated from your compile and build process

These are just a few specific examples but there are tons more. I think 3 is the most common mistake people tend to make with their source control. As a web developer, I cringe when I see a node_modules folder in a repository full of packages.

From a practical standpoint, there exists a repository that answers your question specific to what you are doing. It provides .gitignore files for a various range of projects:

https://github.com/github/gitignore