Storage link is not included when doing a Git push Laravel

Question

I just have done a git push in our online repo

When I checked the online repo and checked the public folder it shows this:

while in my local repo I have this in my public folder:

My local has Storage folder from my storage link. I am guessing that this has something to do with the .gitignore inside my local public folder. It contains:

*
!.gitignore

Same goes with my storage folders. In our Online repo inside storage/app/public:

while in my local storage folder:

user_images is present in my local repo. Here is the inner .gitignore:

*
!.gitignore

and the outer .gitigore:

*
!public/
!.gitignore

I am not quite familiar with setting rules in .gitignore. I wish to make sure that whatever my local Storage and public folder has, the Online repo has as well. How should I go about in doing this?

Kindly edit my tags if it is misleading or incorrect. Thank you.

This is the content of the root .gitignore:

/node_modules
/public/hot
/public/storage
/storage/*.key
/vendor
.env
.phpunit.result.cache
Homestead.json
Homestead.yaml
npm-debug.log
yarn-error.log

I have removed /public/storage in .gitignored and tried to do a git push

Changes not staged for commit:
        modified:   .gitignore

and still, nothing is the same from my local to Online repo? Anything I might have missed?

Tried running git check-ignore -v path/to/file

In my root .gitignore:

/node_modules
/public/hot
/public/storage
/storage/*.key
/vendor
.env
.phpunit.result.cache
Homestead.json
Homestead.yaml
npm-debug.log
yarn-error.log

If I ran git check-ignore -v public/hot, it replies with .gitignore:2:/public/hot public/hot but if I ran git check-ignore -v public/storage, it doesn't respond with anything which it should because it is included in root .gitignore I come to believe that this situation made it impossible for the public/storage/user_images and storage/app/public/user_images. Any help is needed.

I may have been viewing a wrong file or path all this time. But I can confirm that @VonC method helped me do a proper exclusion in gitignore. Thanks.

EDIT:

Final gitignores so far

root .gitignore:

/node_modules
# /public/hot
# /public/storage
/storage/*.key
/vendor
.env
.phpunit.result.cache
Homestead.json
Homestead.yaml
npm-debug.log
yarn-error.log

storage\app.gitignore

# *
# !public/
!.gitignore

storage\app\public.gitignore

# *
!.gitignore

public\storage.gitignore

# *
!.gitignore

Just an additional info:

git check-ignore -v vendor gives .gitignore:5:/vendor vendor

while git check-ignore -v /vendor gives fatal: C:/Program Files/Git/vendor: 'C:/Program Files/Git/vendor' is outside repository

I'm not sure where git check-ignore -v path points to.

Answer 1

First, for any file ignore within a folder, type:

git check-ignore -v -- path/to/file

That will display exactly which .gitignore is responsible for ignoring said file.

Second, the rule of gitignore is simple:

It is not possible to re-include a file if a parent directory of that file is excluded.

To exclude files (or all files) from a subfolder of an ignored folder f, you would do:

f/**
!f/**/
!f/a/sub/folder/someFile.txt

Meaning: you need to whitelist folders first, before being able to exclude from gitignore files.

Answer 2

For those who might still be searching for an answer, edit the .gitignore files in storage/app and storage/app/public folders and remove the first 2 lines from each.