Exclude files from Gemini Code Assist use

Gemini Code Assist supports excluding files from your context for code generation, code completion, code transformation, and chat. For Enterprise users, this also includes code customization.

In many scenarios, you'll have specific files or subtrees that you don't want to have included in your context.

You can exclude these files through the use of an .aiexclude or .gitignore file.

Configure context exclusion settings

This section shows you how to configure settings for .aiexclude and .gitignore files.

Change .aiexclude file to your preferred file

By default, context exclusion is set to use .aiexclude. To change this setting in your IDE, follow these steps:

VS Code

In the activity bar, click settings Manage > Settings.
In the Settings window, navigate to Extensions > Gemini Code Assist. Scroll until you find Context Exclusion File.
In the text field, change .aiexclude to your preferred location.

Your preferred file is now set as the context exclusion file.

IntelliJ

Configuring settings for .aiexclude and .gitignore files isn't supported in JetBrains IDEs.

Change .gitignore context exclusion

By default, the .gitignore file is enabled for context exclusion. The file must be located in the root working folder for Gemini Code Assist. .gitignore files located in subdirectories won't be considered or merged.

To disable .gitignore files from context exclusion, follow these steps:

In the activity bar, click settings Manage > Settings.
In the Settings window, navigate to Extensions > Gemini Code Assist. Scroll until you find Context Exclusion Gitignore.
Unselect the checkbox.

.gitignore files are now disabled for specifying file Gemini Code Assist to ignore.

Write an `.aiexclude` file

An .aiexclude file follows the same syntax as a .gitignore file.

Examples

The following examples demonstrate how you can configure an .aiexclude file:

Block all files named apikeys.txt at or below the directory that contains the .aiexclude file:
```
apikeys.txt
```
Block all files with the .key file extension at or below the directory that contains the .aiexclude file:
```
*.key
```
Block only the apikeys.txtfile at the same directory as the .aiexclude file, but not any subdirectories:
```
/apikeys.txt
```
Block all files in the directory my/sensitive/dir and all subdirectories. The path should be relative to the directory that contains the .aiexclude file.
```
my/sensitive/dir/
```
Blocks all the files in directory foo and its subdirectories except file named bar.txt in the foo directory.
```
foo/*
!foo/bar.txt
```

Control access to index for code customization

By default, code customization indexes all the supported code files in your specified repositories.

To prevent exposure of code that you don't want to be used in the context, you can use branch patterns to control access to your index and use a stable branch, such as main.

Alternatively, you can also exclude files from the context by creating an .aiexclude file.