Gitattributes - LFS Filters, Linguist Hints and export-ignore
The non-EOL half of the format: LFS filter/diff/merge triples, `linguist-generated` and `linguist-vendored` hints that hide files from language statistics and review, `export-ignore` entries that drop paths from `git archive`, and a `merge=union` driver for an append-only changelog. Attribute values are unquoted and space-separated, so column alignment is whitespace a parser must collapse.
# Git LFS — the four-part filter every LFS pointer needs
*.psd filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
*.mp4 filter=lfs diff=lfs merge=lfs -text
# Keep generated code out of the language statistics and out of review diffs
web/src/api/generated/** linguist-generated=true
docs/vendor/** linguist-vendored=true
*.min.js linguist-generated=true -diff
# Force a language for an ambiguous extension
*.h linguist-language=C
# Excluded from git archive exports
/.github/ export-ignore
/e2e/ export-ignore
# Union merge for an append-only file, so both sides survive
CHANGELOG.md merge=union
Specifications
- Seed
- 20260807
- Repository Name
- .gitattributes
- Rules
- 10
- Lfs Patterns
- 2
- Linguist Hints
- 4
- Export Ignores
- 2
- Merge Drivers
- 1
- Line Endings
- LF
- Encoding
- UTF-8
Testing contract
Expected to pass- Scenario
- Resolve the full attribute set for web/src/api/generated/client.ts and for CHANGELOG.md.
- Expected result
- The generated client is marked linguist-generated=true; CHANGELOG.md resolves to merge=union, so a merge concatenates both sides instead of conflicting.
What is a .gitattributes file?
A .gitattributes file assigns per-path attributes that change how Git handles matching files. It controls end-of-line normalisation (`text`, `-text`, `eol=lf`), diff and merge drivers, export filtering, `linguist-*` language hints, and Git LFS filters, using the same pattern syntax as .gitignore with attributes listed after each pattern.
How to use this file
Use an example .gitattributes file to test attribute parsers and repository-tooling that has to honour line-ending or diff-driver rules, verifying that binary paths are excluded from text normalisation and that later patterns override earlier ones.
How to use this file for testing
“Gitattributes - LFS Filters, Linguist Hints and export-ignore” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Config parsing, Config testing, Visual diff / regression. TOML and INI configuration files with nested sections and typed values — for testing config parsers and loaders.
Documented properties for this file: seed 20260807 · UTF-8 · LF. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Diff and patch fixtures name their target paths and the exact edge case they exercise — rename, mode change, binary hunk, CRLF↔LF, or missing trailing newline. Apply or render them against the documented before-state; every author, path, and hash is fictional.
Point your config loader at the file and assert it reads the documented sections and typed values, including any deliberately-tricky nesting or comments.
Related files
- txtCODEOWNERS - Overlapping Globs With Documented WinnersDeliberately overlapping rules so every interesting path matches two or three of them, which is the only way to test that a resolver applies last-match-wins rather than most-specific-wins. One rule has no owners at all, which clears inherited ownership instead of adding any.
- gitconfigGitconfig - includeIf Conditions in Four FlavoursEvery conditional-include form git supports — path prefix, case-insensitive path prefix, branch glob, and a condition on an existing remote URL — plus one unconditional include. Order matters: a later include overrides an earlier one, so a parser that gathers includes into a set rather than a list resolves the wrong identity.
- gitconfigGitconfig - Sections, Quoted Subsections and Shell AliasesA realistic global config exercising the whole INI-like grammar: bracketed sections, quoted subsection names that are case-sensitive while section names are not, values with size suffixes, a shell alias whose leading `!` changes how the rest is executed, and both comment characters.
- gitignoreGitignore - Escaped #, !, Bracket and Trailing SpaceEvery escape the format defines, including the one nobody expects: a trailing space is stripped from a pattern unless it is backslash-escaped, so `draft\ ` and `draft` ignore different files. Editors that trim trailing whitespace on save silently change what this file means.
- gitignoreGitignore - Globstar, Anchors and Character ClassesOne pattern per rule in the gitignore grammar: a leading slash that anchors to the containing directory, the same name unanchored, `**` in all three positions, `?` and `[...]` classes, and a trailing slash that matches only directories. Every line is a separate assertion for a matcher's test suite.
- gitignoreGitignore - Negation After a Directory Exclusion (No Effect)The single most misunderstood rule in the format: once `build/` excludes a directory, git does not descend into it, so `!build/keep.txt` is dead. The file is valid and the behaviour is documented — it is the author's expectation that is wrong, which is exactly why an ignore-matcher must reproduce it rather than being helpful.
Generated by generation/version_control.py. Free for any use, no attribution required — license.