[yjftsjthsd-h]

I'm confused. Having a file gitignored doesn't stop you from committing it; AFAIK you can just

  touch build/.gitkeep
  git add build/.gitkeep
  git commit build/.gitkeep

And that's it? There's no need to exclude anything.

[williadc]

The idea is that you don't want to check-in any builds.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Sure, so gitignore build/ or whatever. But you don't need to unignore .gitkeep