Unreal Engine .gitignore template

Binaries holds the compiled game and editor modules. Intermediate holds everything on the way there: generated headers from the reflection system, object files, and the build graph. Both are produced from the source and the project files, and both are large enough that committing them dominates the repository within a few builds.

DerivedDataCache is the asset processing cache. Source assets are stored in one format and cooked into platform specific forms on demand, and the cache holds those cooked results keyed by content hash. It is regenerated as needed, it is machine local, and on a project with a real content set it is measured in tens of gigabytes.

Saved is the runtime output directory: logs, crash reports, autosaves, screenshots, configuration written by the editor as you work. Autosaves in particular are a trap, because they are full copies of assets you are editing, so a committed Saved directory can be larger than the content it duplicates.

The Visual Studio rules cover *.sln, *.suo, *.sdf, *.opensdf, *.opendb, *.VC.db and .vs. Project and solution files are regenerated by a right click command on the project file, so they are output rather than source. *.xcodeproj and *.xcworkspace are the same idea for a macOS toolchain.

What this template cannot help with is the content itself. Unreal assets are large binary files that do not diff or merge, so a team working on the same asset needs file locking and large file storage rather than an ignore rule. The ignore file keeps the derived data out; the content strategy is a separate decision.