REST API endpoints for gitignore

Use the REST API to get .gitignore templates that can be used to ignore files and directories.

About gitignore

When you create a new repository on GitHub via the API, you can specify a .gitignore template to apply to the repository upon creation. You can use the REST API to get .gitignore templates from the GitHub .gitignore repository.

Note

Most endpoints use Authorization: Bearer <YOUR-TOKEN> and Accept: application/vnd.github+json headers, plus X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2026-03-10. Curl examples below omit these standard headers for brevity.

Get all gitignore templates

GET /gitignore/templates

List all templates available to pass as an option when creating a repository.

HTTP response status codes

Code examples

Example

Request:

curl -L \
  -X GET \
  https://api.github.com/gitignore/templates

Response schema (Status: 200):

Array of string

Get a gitignore template

GET /gitignore/templates/{name}

Get the content of a gitignore template.
This endpoint supports the following custom media types. For more information, see "Media types."

application/vnd.github.raw+json: Returns the raw .gitignore contents.

Parameters

Headers

Path and query parameters

HTTP response status codes

Code examples

Example

Request:

curl -L \
  -X GET \
  https://api.github.com/gitignore/templates/NAME

Response schema (Status: 200):