My .elliot directory

Just a small article this time around, so I'll get to the point!

In my global .gitignore file I keep a line for .elliot. This lets me have a directory in every code project called .elliot which is always ignored by git.

This provides me with a space to dump notes, scripts, and other things without constantly juggling with the git stage to ensure the files don't make it into my commits.

I don't use it all the time, but here are a few cases I've used it for over the last few months.

• A repo for a CLI app which has a lot of flags, I've got a few shell files to make running the application easy in specific scenarios I'm working with.
• Potential documentation which I'm putting together while onboarding to a project. I often find at the start of a project I'm desperate for documentation which doesn't exist, so I write it while it while I'm going. These drafts almost always need a lot of refinement as I learn more and connect the dots. I store those docs in there while I'm working on whatever task I have and then eventually "promote" them into the docs directory.
• Random hacks or micro-programs I end up putting together to help me as I'm working on something. Today for example, I was having a problem with validation of some files, so I isolated the validation code and then wrote a tiny python script which reads a file and calls the validation function.

Mose of those use cases are ephemeral or shortlived, but by having them in my .elliot directory, I don't have to think about them when working with git. On the off-chance I ever want to submit it to the project, the promption process as easy as dragging it into place.