Worked on improving inotify watch reliability for the vercel/turborepo project by addressing Linux-specific limitations related to excessive watch registrations. Developed a gitignore-aware directory traversal mechanism in Rust to skip over gitignored directories, such as node_modules, during inotify watch setup, thereby reducing the risk of exceeding OS watch limits while still monitoring essential output directories. Employed test-driven development to add end-to-end tests ensuring that excluded directories do not emit watch events. Validated the solution using Docker-based reproductions to simulate real-world constraints, and maintained cross-platform compatibility by ensuring that macOS and Windows watcher behavior remained unchanged throughout the process.