---
title: "TIL: Including subfiles of ignored directories"
date: 2022-11-25T00:00:00
slug: til-including-subfiles-of-ignored-directories

---
Okay that title is a bit of a mess. Here's the problem, you have a directory that looks like this:

```bash
- app.ts
- scripts
    - file.sh
    - anotherfile.sh
    - build.js
- node_modules
```

Previously I didn't want to upload anything in `scripts`, however now I've added `build.js` and I _would_ like that uploaded.

My `.ignore` looks like this right now:

```ignore
node_modules
scripts/
```

I initially thought that just adding an exception for the file would work:

```ignore
node_modules
scripts/
!scripts/build.js
```

But nope! That doesn't work. At first I thought it was to do with specificity, but reordering had no effect either.

It turns out, what I actually needed was:

```ignore
node_modules
scripts/*
!scripts/
!scripts/build.js
```

This means I exclude everything inside the scripts directory, but it still allows me to explicitly include my `build.js` file.