.gitignore NuGet exclude packages/ include packages/repositories.config

Question

I\'m trying to create a .gitignore for a Visual Studio project that uses NuGet. It currently contains:

\\packages/*
!packages/repositories.config

Answer 1

I faced the same issue.

None of the above solutions worked for me. And I think it's a poor solution to maintain multiple .ignore files.

This is how I solved it.

**/packages/*
!**/packages/repositories.config

Combining two asterisks will match any string of folders. I thought leaving out asterisks would have the same effect, but apparently I (we) were wrong, as it doesn't seem to work.

The official .gitignore template for Visual Studio recommends the following solutions:

# NuGet Packages
*.nupkg
# The packages folder can be ignored because of Package Restore
**/packages/*
# except build/, which is used as an MSBuild target.
!**/packages/build/
# Uncomment if necessary however generally it will be regenerated when needed
#!**/packages/repositories.config

EDIT: You can use https://www.gitignore.io to generate .ignore file for your favorite project :-)