Not true, you can push a file and later gitignore it and it will remain visible on those UIs. It's still part of the repo.

Doing it the other way around is also possible but harder as the git client will refuse but can be convinced.

Yeah this is wrong.

They will show the files in your repo.

gitignore just decides whether untracked files appear as new or ignored. (But you can commit them anyway if you are so inclined.)

how do you commit a file without first adding it?

`git add -f` will add ignored files. Once you've done that, any files you've added will be part of your commit regardless of the contents of .gitignore.

Also, files that are added to .gitignore after they’ve already been committed will still appear as modified. To stop tracking them, you need to remove them from the index (staging area):

    git rm --cached <file>

Right... and also (I think; unsure bc I only ever use cli) some GUIs (eg github.com web ui) may enable adding files that'd otherwise be ignored.

(shrug)

would be nice, if there's a modifier in there, which says showinwebui=(true|false) :D

Yeah, also that's probably not the kind of error a human writing this post would make... I stopped reading at that point

This is exactly the sort of error that a human with a slightly incorrect mental model for something makes all the time.