`turbo watch` does not rerun task on changes in `.gitignore`'d files

[ygrandgirard]

Verify canary release

• I verified that the issue exists in the latest Turborepo canary release.

Link to code that reproduces this issue

https://github.com/ygrandgirard/turbo-watch-windows-repo

Which canary version will you have in your reproduction?

At the time of writing, the most recent version is the latest (2.6.3) and not a canary.

Environment information

> npx turbo info
turbo 2.6.3

CLI:
   Version: 2.6.3
   Path to executable: <PROJECT_PATH>\node_modules\turbo-windows-64\bin\turbo.exe
   Daemon status: Not running
   Package manager: npm

Platform:
   Architecture: x86_64
   Operating system: windows
   WSL: false
   Available memory (MB): 5534
   Available CPU cores: 16

Environment:
   CI: None
   Terminal (TERM): unknown
   Terminal program (TERM_PROGRAM): unknown
   Terminal program version (TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION): unknown
   Shell (SHELL): unknown
   stdin: false

Expected behavior

turbo watch should react to changes in .gitignore'd files, at least if they are part of the task inputs.
Actually, when running npx create-turbo, the generated code defines a build task depending on .env.* files which are also .gitignore'd.

It works fine with WSL.

Actual behavior

Nothing happens.

To Reproduce

• Clone the repository
• npm ci
• echo package.json >> .gitignore
• npx turbo watch build --ui=stream --log-order=grouped
• Edit the package.json file of any app or package

As soon as I edit package.json out of the .gitignore file, updates are picked up again.

Additional context

No response

[anthonyshew]

This is by design, and a common default for file watcher utilities. There are many files in gitignore that are constantly changing as outputs of your source code.

Having package.json in gitignore doesn't seem like a practical example. Is there a real example where this is impacting your coding workflows?

[ygrandgirard]

Simply running npx create-turbo gives me the following:
turbo.json

{
  // ...
  "tasks": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "inputs": ["$TURBO_DEFAULT$", ".env*"], // Note the `.env*` here
      "outputs": [".next/**", "!.next/cache/**"]
    },
    // ...
  }
}

.gitignore

# ...
# Local env files
.env
.env.local
.env.development.local
.env.test.local
.env.production.local
# ...

With Windows/WSL: adding a .env to an app and editing it will trigger a new build, but not with Powershell/CMD. If this is by design, then there is probably still a bug somewhere?

As for a real-world example, our build system rely on a configuration file to know which module to build and especially bundle together for a release. It is tightly coupled to the projects we are working on (which differs from one person to another), in order to keep our code blocks nice and modular. Because of that, we decided to exclude this file from git due to the many variations we would have to store (and maintain).

[anthonyshew]

I see, this is the same problem as #11118 then, in that folks are expecting turbo watch to respect inputs in turbo.json but it doesn't.

I'll leave this open for the difference in behavior between WSL and Windows, though.