ng new --skip-git/--skipGit should not skip creating .gitignore file

[ADTC]

Versions

Angular CLI: 1.5.3                                           @angular/cli: 1.5.3
Node: 8.9.1                                                  @angular-devkit/build-optimizer: 0.0.33
OS: win32 x64                                                @angular-devkit/core: 0.0.21
Angular: 5.0.3                                               @angular-devkit/schematics: 0.0.37
... animations, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms  @ngtools/json-schema: 1.1.0
... http, language-service, platform-browser                 @ngtools/webpack: 1.8.3
... platform-browser-dynamic, router                         @schematics/angular: 0.1.7
                                                             typescript: 2.4.2
Windows 10 x64                                               webpack: 3.8.1

Repro steps

1. Use ng new --skip-git to create a new project without a Git repository.
2. Open the project folder and look for .gitignore file.

Observed behavior

The .gitignore file does not exist.

Desired behavior

What would like to see implemented?

The .gitignore file should be generated and added to the project.

What is the use case?

• Project may be part of a larger project that already has a Git repository.
• Project may have a Git repository initialized later.

What did you expect to see?

The .gitignore file exists.

Mention any other details that might be useful (optional)

A .gitignore file is still very useful even if no Git repository was initialized. This is because the project may be part of a larger project which already has a Git repository or uses another gitignore-aware VCS. Or a Git repository may be added to the project later. In either case, you do not want all the build files, modules, IDE files, e2e files and whatnot to be checked in to the repository.

For anyone that may never use Git with the project, the .gitignore file is just a small harmless additional file in the project, so it's not an issue there.

Relates to #4854

[Survivedabuse]

@ADTC

[beeman]

This is by design #3713

[ADTC]

I now understand it's by design. But what about the use cases I had described?

[beeman]

@ADTC I think this is such a specific use case that the best option would be to not use the --skip-git flag and just rm -rf .git after you ran the ng new command.

If it's part of a bigger repo you might have to customize it already, the Angular CLI aims to set defaults that work for most situations, but it can never accommodate to any situation.

@Brocco might have more ideas about it.

[Executus]

Here's another use case using VSTS (Visual Studio Online):

1. Create empty git project in VSTS
2. Clone git project on client
3. Create angular app with --skip-git flag, as we don't want to init a new repo. However we still want the gitignore.

[NeeLonGithub]

I expect --skip-git to skip the git processes (init and first commit).
In my case I just don't want the first commit to be done with my global settings, so I want to skip the git processes and do them myself later.
For an option that expects the project to be oblivious of git and therefore not even create a .gitignore, I would expect --no-git or something similar.

[dgp1130]

Discussed this in a CLI meeting today. Unfortunately not much justification was given in the original PR, so it's hard to know the major reasons for removing .gitignore beyond "It's related to Git".

In our discussion, we had the following points:

• It's easier to delete than to add .gitignore for Angular's specific file structure.
• IDEs and tools often use .gitignore to filter unwanted files.
• The existing --skip-package-manager flag just skips the npm/yarn binary, it still generates package.json. So having --skip-git just skip the git init call but create .gitignore would be more consistent.

OTOH:

• If you're using a different VCS, you'd not want to bother with .gitignore at all (though no other VCS is directly supported right now).
• We could add another flag (for example --no-git) as someone suggested, but this would be very confusing when compared to the existing --skip-git and the subtle distinction between them would hard to communicate to users.
• Changing the existing behavior does cause some churn in the ecosystem and user base.

Users could be creating an Angular application in a directory already under source control, though we already handle that today and include .gitignore while skipping git init. So I think we're already doing the right thing here without needing the user to specify an extra flag.

douglasparker@basilisk (~/Source)                                                                        
[20-06-26 10:15:05]$ mkdir git
mkdir: created directory 'git'
douglasparker@basilisk (~/Source)
[20-06-26 10:15:08]$ cd git/                                                                           
douglasparker@basilisk (~/Source/git)
[20-06-26 10:15:10]$ git init                                                                            
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/douglasparker/Source/git/.git/                                 
douglasparker@basilisk (~/Source/git)                                                                    
[20-06-26 10:15:13]$ ng new --defaults ng
# ...
CREATE ng/.gitignore (631 bytes)
# ...
✔ Packages installed successfully.
    Directory is already under version control. Skipping initialization of git.

There's also the somewhat related question of app/assets/.gitkeep, which is also related but doesn't have the same benefits as .gitignore. It's just there so the assets/ folder gets committed.

Based on these points, the consensus of the team is to include .gitignore even when --skip-git is requested. IDEs and other tools will generally work better with this file present and it is trivial to delete it if the user really doesn't want it. If we support other VCS tools in the future, then we may want to revisit this decision.

[alan-agius4]

Closing as per above.

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