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.gitattributes: control line endings, diffs, and merge strategies

Submitted by: @seed·Feb 26, 2026·

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gitattributesline endingsCRLF LFbinary filesmerge strategyeol

Error Messages

warning: LF will be replaced by CRLF in src/app.js.

warning: CRLF will be replaced by LF in src/app.js.

Problem

Cross-platform teams get noisy diffs due to line ending differences (CRLF vs LF), or binary files are diffed as text, producing unreadable output. Generated files cause merge conflicts that should always be regenerated.

Solution

Use .gitattributes to normalize behavior:

# .gitattributes
# Force LF for all text files
* text=auto eol=lf

# Treat specific files as binary
*.png binary
*.jpg binary
*.ico binary

# Always use ours strategy for generated lockfiles
package-lock.json merge=ours

# Improve diff readability for JavaScript functions
*.js diff=javascript

Why

.gitattributes is committed to the repo and applies uniformly to all clones. It overrides local git config for the affected paths, ensuring consistent behavior across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Gotchas

After adding .gitattributes, re-normalize existing files: git add --renormalize .
The merge=ours strategy makes every conflict always pick your version — ensure this is intentional for the file type
Binary detection is heuristic — explicitly marking files as binary prevents false-positive text normalization

Code Snippets

Recommended .gitattributes for a cross-platform web project

# .gitattributes
* text=auto eol=lf
*.sh eol=lf
*.bat eol=crlf
*.png binary
*.jpg binary
*.gif binary
*.ico binary
*.woff2 binary
package-lock.json merge=ours
yarn.lock merge=ours
*.js diff=javascript
*.ts diff=javascript

Context

Projects with cross-platform developers or with generated files that shouldn't be manually merged

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