ivaldi exclude

Add patterns to .ivaldiignore file.

Synopsis

ivaldi exclude <patterns...>

Description

Quickly add file patterns to .ivaldiignore to exclude files from version control.

Arguments

• <patterns...> - File patterns to ignore

Examples

Exclude Build Artifacts

ivaldi exclude build/ dist/ *.exe

Exclude Temporary Files

ivaldi exclude *.tmp *.log .DS_Store

Exclude Directories

ivaldi exclude node_modules/ .cache/ .venv/

Manual .ivaldiignore

You can also manually create .ivaldiignore:

cat > .ivaldiignore <<EOF
# Build artifacts
build/
dist/
*.exe

# Dependencies
node_modules/
.venv/

# IDE
.vscode/
.idea/

# OS
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db

# Logs
*.log
logs/
EOF

Pattern Syntax

• *.log - All .log files (anywhere in tree)
• build/ - Directory and all contents (trailing slash recommended)
• build - Also matches directory (without trailing slash)
• **/*.tmp - Nested files matching pattern
• test/**/*.txt - Specific subdirectories

Directory Exclusion

When excluding directories, always use a trailing slash for clarity:

ivaldi exclude node_modules/    # Excludes entire directory tree
ivaldi exclude dist/            # Excludes dist and all subdirectories
ivaldi exclude .cache/          # Excludes .cache directory

Important: Directory patterns exclude the entire directory tree. For example:

• node_modules/ excludes node_modules/, node_modules/package1/, node_modules/package1/src/index.js, etc.
• The system will skip traversing into excluded directories, making gather much faster

Auto-Excluded Files

These patterns are always automatically excluded for security:

• .env - Environment files
• .env.* - All environment file variants (.env.local, .env.production, etc.)
• .venv - Python virtual environment directory
• .venv/ - Python virtual environment directory

Note: Auto-excluded directories are completely skipped during file gathering

Important Notes

• .ivaldiignore itself is NEVER ignored
• Can always gather and commit .ivaldiignore
• Patterns support glob matching
• Empty lines and # comments allowed

Common Workflows

New Project

ivaldi forge
ivaldi exclude node_modules/ dist/ *.log
ivaldi gather .
ivaldi seal "Initial commit"

Add Language-Specific Ignores

Python:

ivaldi exclude __pycache__/ *.pyc .venv/

Node.js:

ivaldi exclude node_modules/ dist/ .npm/

Go:

ivaldi exclude bin/ *.exe *.test

Check Ignored Files

# Try to gather ignored file
ivaldi gather build/output.exe
# Will be skipped

# Check status
ivaldi status
# Ignored files won't appear

Performance Benefits

Directory exclusion provides significant performance improvements:

# Without exclusion: walks through 50,000+ files in node_modules
ivaldi gather .

# With exclusion: skips node_modules entirely
echo "node_modules/" >> .ivaldiignore
ivaldi gather .  # Much faster!

Best Practice: Always exclude large dependency directories:

• node_modules/ for Node.js
• .venv/ and venv/ for Python
• vendor/ for Go/PHP
• target/ for Rust/Java
• build/ and dist/ for build outputs

Related Commands

• gather - Stage files (respects excludes)
• status - See untracked vs ignored

Comparison with Git

Git	Ivaldi
Edit .gitignore	ivaldi exclude <pattern>
.gitignore	.ivaldiignore
Glob patterns	Glob patterns