.gitignore Done Right — What to Ignore, Why, and the Pattern Every Production Codebase Uses

A deep dive into .gitignore for Python projects — the secrets pattern, the template exception, what belongs in version control and what doesn't, and how one missing line can cost you real money. .gitignore Done Right A developer at a startup pushed their .env file to a public GitHub repository by mistake. Within 4 minutes — automated bots had scraped it. Within 6 minutes — they were making API calls on his account. His bill at the end of the month: $340. One missing line in .gitignore caused thi