Originally Posted by qualiteam

The recommended way for installing updates (even for custom modules) is the built-in upgrade function.

You can store your custom files in a git repository, but you should know that `git pull` is not enough for performing automatic updates - you have to drop the cached & compiled files from a few subdirectories in var/run and start the redeploy function that would recreate these files from your update.

As for a "good" .gitignore file - it depends on your server setup and the software/IDE that you use.
Most likely you don't need files from the "var" directory, server logs and configuration files from the "etc" directory.
"files/service" and "files/attachments" are the other directories to consider for including into the ignore file.