Reasons for making this change

This update modernizes the Angular .gitignore template to align with the latest Angular CLI defaults and community best practices. It removes obsolete patterns (like .angular-cli.json), adds critical ignores for modern Angular workflows (like Bazel builds and persistent cache directories), and incorporates standardized rules for IDE/editor files that Angular developers commonly use. Crucially, it stops ignoring lockfiles (package-lock.json/yarn.lock) since they should be committed for dependency reproducibility, and explicitly preserves team-configured VS Code settings while ignoring personal workspace data. These changes benefit all Angular projects by preventing accidental commits of build artifacts, sensitive caches, and machine-specific configuration files while maintaining team collaboration settings.

Links to documentation supporting these rule changes

1. Angular CLI default ignores
   The official Angular workspace schematic template includes:
   /.angular/cache, /dist, /out-tsc, /coverage, /bazel-out, and lockfile handling guidance:
   https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/blob/main/packages/schematics/angular/workspace/files/__dot__gitignore.template

2. Bazel build artifacts
   Angular's Bazel builder documentation specifies ignoring /bazel-* directories:
   https://bazel.build/remote/output-directories

3. VS Code configuration guidance
   While not officially mandated by Angular, it's considered standard practice to commit essential VS Code configuration files (tasks.json, launch.json, extensions.json) to ensure consistent editor behavior across development teams. This aligns with general software development best practices for maintaining reproducible development environments and enforcing team coding standards.

4. TypeScript build cache
   tsbuildinfo files are now covered implicitly by /dist and /.angular/cache per TypeScript's incremental build docs:
   https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig#tsBuildInfoFile

5. Environment files
   .env is intentionally not ignored here—Angular projects typically commit .env.example but ignore .env via project-specific rules (per the 12-factor app methodology). This template avoids overreach since environment strategies vary:
   https://angular.io/guide/build#configure-environment-specific-defaults

Merge and Approval Steps

• Confirm that you've read the contribution guidelines and ensured your PR aligns
• Ensure CI is passing
• Get a review and Approval from one of the maintainers