Django .gitignore template

local_settings.py is the framework's oldest convention for keeping secrets out of the repository. The shared settings module ends with an import of it, wrapped so that a missing file is not an error, and the local file supplies the database password, the secret key and any debug toggles. Ignoring it is the whole point of the pattern.

db.sqlite3 and its journal file are the development database. It is created by running migrations and populated by whatever you did while developing, which means a committed copy carries real rows: test users with hashed passwords, sample records, and sometimes data copied from production for debugging. It is also binary, so every commit of it is a full rewrite.

media is where user uploads land. It is populated at runtime rather than at build time, it can grow without limit, and its contents belong to users rather than to the project. staticfiles is the opposite case: it is the output of the collection command, which copies static assets from every installed application into one directory for the web server to serve. Both sides of the static pipeline exist, and only the source side belongs in git.

The Python rules underneath are the familiar ones: __pycache__, *.pyc, the *.py[cod] class, and the virtual environment directories. *.pot files are translation templates extracted from the source, regenerated by a management command, while the compiled .mo files are covered by the fuller Python template rather than this one.

What this template does not do is cover the packaging and test caches that a real project accumulates. Pairing it with the Python template gives you .pytest_cache, .coverage, .mypy_cache and the egg-info directories, none of which appear here. That pairing is the normal choice, and it is also why the generator lets you tick more than one template at a time rather than making you pick the closest single match.