You can use sparse-checkout to cut your working directory. sparse-checkout uses the skip-worktree , which allows git to assume that the file in the working tree is updated no matter what.
In the following cases, I assume that you are currently in the root directory of your repository and have a clean working tree ( git stash for example.).
First you need to enable sparse-checkout with git config core.sparsecheckout true ; after that you can define all the templates that you want to “ignore” when placing an order in .git/info/sparse-checkout .
The syntax is the same as in the .gitignore file, the difference is that you define all the files that you want to check , not the ones you want to ignore.
Suppose you want to avoid checking all png files in your repository, then your sparse-checkout file might look like this:
*
If you want to apply sparse-checkout to the current working directory, you must run the read-tree command.
git read-tree -m -u HEAD
After that, you can continue to work with your repository, as usual, without the "ignored" files in the working tree.
TL DR:
- Activate
sparse-checkout : git config core.sparsecheckout true - Define the
sparse-checkout file in .git/info/ containing the file templates you want to include - Update working tree
git read-tree -m -u HEAD
More information about sparse-checkout can be found in the official git read-tree documentation.