.dockerignore whitelist rules not respected

[AndiDog]

Expected behavior

Skaffold calls docker build directly so that .dockerignore file is applied as expected, including whitelist rules like

**

!/.gitmodules
!/CMakeLists.txt
!/etc/**
!/CPlusPlusCode/**
!/submodules/**

which is the recommended approach – only sync what belongs to the build to avoid rebuilds.

Actual behavior

In the above .dockerignore example, only

.gitmodules
CMakeLists.txt
Dockerfile

get transmitted in the Docker context. Far from expectation.

Information

• Skaffold version: 0.34.1
• Operating system: macOS
• Contents of skaffold.yaml:

apiVersion: skaffold/v1beta13
kind: Config

build:
  artifacts:
    - image: skaffold-dockerignore-issue
      docker: {}

  tagPolicy:
    gitCommit:
      variant: AbbrevCommitSha

Steps to reproduce the behavior

See full example project at: https://github.com/AndiDog/skaffold-dockerignore-issue

Why this is important

Because builds are different in Skaffold vs. raw Docker CLI, and the good-practice whitelisting approach in .dockerignore is fully unusable.

[priyawadhwa]

Hey @AndiDog thanks for the detailed issue and for providing the example project, I was able to reproduce this bug really easily.

On first glance, I would guess that the issue is in our WalkWorkspace function. It looks like this is failing for files specified in the .dockerignore as

!/etc/**
!/CPlusPlusCode/**
!/submodules/**

and so I'm guessing the bug could lie with this SkipDir. Would you be interested in exploring this bug and potentially submitting a PR?