Editor/IDE artefact tracked

User-local editor state does not belong in shared history.

Gate ID

ide_artifact_tracked

Severity

warning

Scope

Tracked files (git ls-files)

Tags

git-hygiene

What it checks

Flags tracked editor/IDE/OS artefacts (.vscode/, .idea/, .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, *.swp, *~, …).

Flagged: .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, desktop.ini, *.swp, *.swo, *~, and anything under .vscode/, .idea/, .vs/, .sublime-project/, .sublime-workspace/.

Deliberate exception. .vscode/settings.json, tasks.json, launch.json, extensions.json and mcp.json are not flagged. VS Code defines these as project-level and shareable, and GitHub's own VisualStudioCode.gitignore ignores .vscode/* and then explicitly un-ignores exactly these five. Committing them is the documented convention, not an accident.

What a finding says

.idea/workspace.xml is a user-local editor/IDE/OS artefact and shouldn't live in shared history. Add it to .gitignore and remove with `git rm --cached .idea/workspace.xml`.

Turning it off

Silence the gate for the whole project in .l0git.json:

{
  "ignore": ["ide_artifact_tracked"]
}

Or keep it running at a lower severity:

{
  "severity": { "ide_artifact_tracked": "info" }
}

See also

• .gitignore coverage