cyberignore guide

.cyberignore File Guide

Overview

Place a .cyberignore file in your source version directory to exclude files and directories from patches. The file is loaded automatically by the scanner during patch generation.

Automatic Exclusions

The following are always excluded without needing to list them:

• backup.cyberpatcher/ — patch backup directory
• .cyberignore — the ignore file itself

Syntax

:: Lines starting with double-colon are comments (only at start of line)
:: Blank lines are ignored

*.key
logs/
config/secrets.json
E:\temp\build\*.log

• *.key — matches any .key file recursively
• logs/ — trailing slash excludes entire directory tree
• config/secrets.json — exact nested path match
• E:\temp\build\*.log — absolute path with wildcard

Pattern Matching

• Exact filenames: secret.key matches only that file at root
• Wildcards: *.log matches any .log file at any depth
• Directories: logs/ excludes the entire tree under logs/
• Nested paths: config/secrets.json matches only that specific path
• Absolute paths: E:\temp\*.log matches files by full filesystem path (added v1.0.12)
• Case: Exact path matching uses case-insensitive strings.EqualFold. Directory patterns with trailing slash (e.g., logs/) match case-insensitively via strings.ToLower. Directory patterns without trailing slash (e.g., logs) are case-sensitive. Wildcard (*) matching via filepath.Match is platform-dependent (case-insensitive on Windows, case-sensitive on Linux/macOS).

Examples

:: Sensitive files
*.key
*.pem
.env
config/secrets.json

:: Logs and temp
*.log
logs/
temp/

:: Dev tools
.vscode/
.idea/

:: User data (don't override)
saves/
user_config.json

Verification

Run a dry patch generation and check the file count in the output to confirm patterns work:

patch-gen --from-dir ./versions/1.0.0 --to-dir ./versions/1.0.1 --output ./test