But that's an inherent problem with a non-transactional file system. If you remove .gitignore 1 microsecond before git open()s it, it's gone. If you remove .g

But that's an inherent problem with a non-transactional file system. If you remove .gitignore 1 microsecond before git open()s it, it's gone. If you remove .gitignore 1 microsecond after git open()s it (even before it has a chance to read it), unix file system semantics mean you still get the contents. There is always a race condition, you can play with the specifics, but cannot avoid it when multiple files referring to each other are edited independently.