the `$GIT_DIR/info/exclude` file. Patterns which a user wants git to
ignore in all situations (e.g., backup or temporary files generated by
the user's editor of choice) generally go into a file specified by
-`core.excludesfile` in the user's `~/.gitconfig`.
+`core.excludesfile` in the user's `~/.gitconfig`. Its default value is
+$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/git/ignore. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or empty,
+$HOME/.config/git/ignore is used instead.
The underlying git plumbing tools, such as
'git ls-files' and 'git read-tree', read