.gitignore for React Projects

React projects inherit most patterns from Node.js but have additional framework-specific directories and build artifacts to exclude. The right .gitignore depends on your build tool.

Create React App (CRA):

• build/ — The production build output from npm run build. This directory contains minified, hashed JavaScript and CSS bundles. It is fully reproducible and should be built by CI, not committed.
• node_modules/ — As with all Node.js projects, never commit dependencies.

Vite-based React projects:

• dist/ — Vite outputs the production build to dist/ by default instead of build/.
• .vite/ — Vite's dependency pre-bundling cache directory.

Common React patterns:

• .env.local, .env.development.local, .env.production.local — Environment overrides containing API keys or feature flags. CRA and Vite both load these automatically. The base .env file is typically committed with non-sensitive defaults, but .env.local must always be ignored.
• coverage/ — Test coverage from Jest or Vitest.
• storybook-static/ — Built Storybook documentation site. If you use Storybook for component development, ignore the static output.
• .eslintcache — ESLint caching file that speeds up linting but is machine-specific.
• *.tsbuildinfo — TypeScript incremental compilation cache. Useful locally but not needed in the repo.

Monorepo considerations: If your React app lives inside a monorepo (Turborepo, Nx, Lerna), each package may have its own dist/ or build/ directory. Use patterns like **/dist/ or add a root-level .gitignore that covers all workspaces.

What to commit: Always commit package-lock.json, tsconfig.json, and .eslintrc configuration files. These ensure consistent development environments across your entire team.