Append a gitignore template to your local .gitignore.

gistfile1.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import sys
import fcntl
import termios
import struct
import urllib2
import json

GITIGNORE_URL = "https://api.github.com/gitignore/templates"


def getTerminalSize():
    env = os.environ
    def ioctl_GWINSZ(fd):
        try:
            cr = struct.unpack('hh', fcntl.ioctl(fd, termios.TIOCGWINSZ,
        '1234'))
        except:
            return
        return cr
    cr = ioctl_GWINSZ(0) or ioctl_GWINSZ(1) or ioctl_GWINSZ(2)
    if not cr:
        try:
            fd = os.open(os.ctermid(), os.O_RDONLY)
            cr = ioctl_GWINSZ(fd)
            os.close(fd)
        except:
            pass
    if not cr:
        cr = (env.get('LINES', 25), env.get('COLUMNS', 80))
    return int(cr[1]), int(cr[0])


def _print(msg):
    sys.stdout.write(msg)
    sys.stdout.flush()

response = urllib2.urlopen(GITIGNORE_URL)

templates = json.loads(response.read())

options = {}
i = 1
width, height = getTerminalSize()
longest = len(max(templates, key=len)) + 7
columns = width / longest

for template in templates:
    options[i] = template
    line = "%d: %s" % (i, template)
    _print(line + " " * (longest - len(line)))
    if i % columns == 0 or len(templates) <= i:
        _print("\n")
    i +=1

choice = int(raw_input("Select template: "))

response = urllib2.urlopen(GITIGNORE_URL + '/' + options[choice])
template = json.loads(response.read())

with open('.gitignore', "a") as f:
    f.write("# %s\n" % template['name'])
    f.write(template['source'])
    f.write("\n")

print("Added %s template to .gitignore" % template['name'])