Basic .gitignore setup?

[Terry_Marr]

What is the recommended way to add a .gitignore file to a project?

I’ve added the file at the project root, but what files/folders are recommended to include?

I’ve scoured the docs for this but without any luck.

Can someone be kind enough to show me an example?

[mateuszmacheta]

It has been discussed already, please see this topic: Is there a suggested .gitignore to use with UIPath Studio? - #19 by mateuszmacheta

[Jon_Smith]

I feel like ignoring the local entirely can cause issues as you also lose the /.local/ProjectSettings.json file, which can contain some stuff you want to make sure doesn’t get lost between users and commits.

To be specific, for example settings like IncludeSourcesByDefault or RemoveUnusedDependencies. I think the settings in a library to force it to split the library in two with that Runtime thing also happens there, which is super annoying to have turned on (which it is by default).

As such I’d suggest a GIT Ignore more like this

# Ignore everything in the local folder
.local/

# But do not ignore this specific file
!local/ProjectSettings.json

There might be more to include in that folder.

[mateuszmacheta]

@Jon_Smith

I think the settings in a library to force it to split the library in two with that Runtime thing also happens there

Do you know what is that setting? I hate it.

[Jon_Smith]

I made a topic about it a while back as I didnt like it being set to split as default.
Since I made the topic they did update automation ops so that should help you default it to no, but I attached the screenshot of the setting either way.

If you dont have automation ops and ignore the entire .local folder then this setting will revert to split every time you clone as ignoring the local ignores committing this setting.

Separate design time and runtime dependencies

So, really not a fan of this new feature. It creates a huge amount of clutter in my packages feed now as each library I publish becomes two libraries so I have twice as many packages as before and must filter out and ignore the runtime ones. Seems like a ton of overhead for what I imagine is miniscule time savings on downloading packages as they aren’t all that big anyway. Why isn’t this an optional thing for if you do have a package is too large and leave us with the simple single packages as…

[mateuszmacheta]

Ok, I don’t like this setting. It replaces some of libraries with .Runtime versions of them right? And then for any changes I have to re-add original libraries.

[Jon_Smith]

Yep.

What it is intended for is to split out the raw code and the activity cards / screenshots that you see when using the design canvas, the idea is that when the automation is publised it only needs the code and not the other stuff so it will save space and be faster if the unattended robot doesn’t have the extra stuff in the library so Studio will automatically convert the dependencies to runtime ones on build. It does this natively with the default UiPath ones where possible and can be seen if you try to unpack the nuget file for a process.

I personally think its just more trouble than its worth, its cost me plenty of time in terms of having twice as many packages to manage between tenants and errors because one of them were missing to ever offset any time saving in robot execution.

I asked lots of times to see the stats on this to see how much time its actually supposed to save as I cannot imagine it is a meaningful amount.
I am fine with it being an option, I just strongly feel it should be default NO.