Support file/path exclusions

[rikoe]

It would be great if cla-bot supported configuring what type and/or locations of files to monitor for changes.

E.g. if you can specify *.md or /docs/**/* to exclude particular files or folders from CLA checks.

[ColinEberhardt]

Hi @rikoe - it would be good if you could describe the underlying use-case here?

Is it that there are certain files / folders where you'd like to accept changes from users who have not signed the CLA?

[rikoe]

The underlying use case is that for some content in the repo, CLA may not be required (or so I am told), and only for code submissions. So this would allow turning off CLA scanning for e.g. markdown files.

[ColinEberhardt]

Ok, could be a useful feature, but would be relatively complex, requiring extra API call to determine the files ‘touched’ by each commit within a PR.

I also wonder about the licensing issues, feels like it would open up a whole can of worms? Markdown files, config, documentation are all part of the project, and surely need a CLA to ensure the a contributor has the rights to the changes they have committed and are happy to have them redistributed under the projects OSS licence.

[rikoe]

@ColinEberhardt all good points. Let me loop back to FINOS.