Unix 'find' without descending into matche

Question

I was trying to remove all git files from a repository with this:

find . -name ".git*" -exec rm -rf {} \;

However, rm warns that files could not be deleted (because their parent directory has already been deleted).

Is there a way to get find to stop recursing when it finds a matching directory?

E.g. find...

/.gitmodules
/.git/stuff
/.git/.gitfile

... produces

/.gitmodules
/.git

Answer 1

Use -depth:

find . -depth -name ".git*" -exec rm -rf {} \;

This would allow you to process the files or subdirectories first before their parent directories.