layer

The tool provides a mechanism for excluding files that reside inside a Git repository from being tracked, while leaving the repository’s .gitignore unchanged. It operates by intercepting Git’s status and add commands, filtering out specified paths so they never appear as untracked or staged changes. This approach is useful for developers who need to keep temporary, generated, or environment‑specific files in the working tree without permanently modifying the repository’s ignore configuration.

It is distributed as a Rust crate, making it straightforward to integrate into Rust‑based tooling or to compile as a standalone binary. The crate’s documentation outlines how to configure the exclusion list, typically via a command‑line flag or a configuration file, and describes the interaction with standard Git workflows. Because the package is marked as experimental, it may still be under active development and could lack full coverage of all edge cases.

The primary audience consists of developers who work with Git repositories that contain local files that should remain private or transient, yet who cannot or do not want to alter the shared .gitignore file. By providing a non‑intrusive way to hide such files, the tool helps maintain a clean repository state while preserving local workflow requirements.