feat(cli): support glob patterns in .blaxelignore

[michaelbrusegard]

Fixes ENG-4085

Summary

• match .blaxelignore entries with Docker's maintained pattern matcher
• support *, ?, **, character classes, and ordered ! exclusions
• preserve the existing behavior where unanchored literal paths match at any depth
• compile patterns once per archive and return a clear error for invalid patterns
• keep .env.build unconditionally excluded

This makes it practical to share one ignore policy between .dockerignore and .blaxelignore, including patterns such as **/*.test.ts and **/.env.*.

Testing

• go test -count=1 ./...
• go build ./...
• golangci-lint run --new-from-rev=origin/main (0 new issues)

Lint baseline

make lint still reports 15 pre-existing findings in unrelated files on main; this change introduces none.

---

Note

Replaces the simple string-prefix/contains/suffix ignore-path matching with Docker's patternmatcher library, enabling glob patterns (*, **, ?, [...]) and ordered ! exclusions in .blaxelignore. Unanchored literal paths are automatically prefixed with **/ to preserve existing depth-agnostic matching behavior. .env.build is appended last to remain unconditionally excluded.

^{Written by Mendral for commit 53d41e8.}

[mendral-app]

🧪 Testing Guide

What this PR addresses

Replaces the literal string-matching logic in .blaxelignore with Docker's moby/patternmatcher library, enabling glob patterns (*, ?, **, character classes) and ordered ! exclusions. Previously, .blaxelignore only supported exact literal path segments. This PR also ensures .env.build is always excluded (appended last so it can't be negated).

Steps to reproduce the original issue

1. Create a Blaxel project with a .blaxelignore containing glob patterns like **/*.test.ts or **/.env.*.
2. Run a deploy (or trigger archive creation).
3. Before this PR: those glob patterns are treated as literal path segments and won't match any files — test files and env files end up in the archive.

What to verify (expected behavior)

Unit tests:

go test -count=1 ./cli/...

All existing and new tests should pass, including:

• TestDeploymentShouldIgnorePath — literal paths still match at any depth (backwards compat).
• TestDeploymentShouldIgnoreGlobPatterns — **/*.test.ts, **/.env.*, and ! negations work correctly.
• TestDeploymentShouldIgnoreAnchoredLiteralPath — ./infra only matches at root, not nested.
• TestNewIgnoredPathMatcherRejectsInvalidPattern — malformed patterns like [invalid return a clear error.

Behavioral checks:

• Unanchored literal paths (e.g. node_modules) still match at any directory depth (no regression).
• Anchored paths (./infra or /infra) only match at the project root.
• !-prefixed patterns correctly re-include previously excluded files.
• .env.build is always excluded regardless of ignore file contents.
• Volume-template deployments still skip ignore logic entirely.

Build & lint:

go build ./...
golangci-lint run

Note

Posted by PR Testing Guide · Tag @mendral-app with feedback.

[mendral-app]

🔀 Interaction Flow

Here's how the new glob-based ignore matching flows through the affected components:

sequenceDiagram
    participant CA as createArchive()
    participant IP as IgnoredPaths()
    participant NM as newIgnoredPathMatcher()
    participant NP as normalizeIgnorePattern()
    participant PM as moby/patternmatcher
    participant IM as ignoredPathMatcher.matches()

    CA->>IP: Load .blaxelignore patterns
    IP-->>IP: Read file, split lines, skip comments/blanks
    IP-->>IP: Append ".env.build" (unconditional)
    IP-->>CA: []string patterns

    CA->>NM: Compile patterns (root, patterns)
    loop For each pattern
        NM->>NP: normalizeIgnorePattern(pattern)
        NP-->>NP: Handle ! negation prefix
        NP-->>NP: Handle / or ./ anchor prefix
        NP-->>NP: Prepend **/ if unanchored literal
        NP-->>NM: normalized pattern
    end
    NM->>PM: patternmatcher.New(normalizedPatterns)
    PM-->>NM: compiled PatternMatcher
    NM-->>CA: &ignoredPathMatcher{root, matcher}

    loop filepath.Walk directory tree
        CA->>IM: matches(absolutePath)
        IM-->>IM: filepath.Rel → toArchivePath
        IM->>PM: MatchesOrParentMatches(relativePath)
        PM-->>IM: bool (ignored?)
        IM-->>CA: true → skip / false → add to archive
    end

Loading

Summary

The PR replaces the old shouldIgnorePath() string-prefix/suffix matching with a structured pipeline:

1. Load — IgnoredPaths() reads .blaxelignore, always appending .env.build last to guarantee exclusion.
2. Compile — newIgnoredPathMatcher() normalizes each pattern (handling negation !, anchoring /, and adding **/ for backward-compat literals), then delegates to moby/patternmatcher for one-time compilation.
3. Match — During the archive walk, ignoredPathMatcher.matches() converts each absolute path to a relative archive path and checks it against the compiled matcher (including parent-directory matching).

This enables Docker-style glob patterns (**/*.test.ts, **/.env.*), ordered ! exclusions, and character classes — all compiled once per archive operation.

Note

Posted by PR Sequence Diagram · Tag @mendral-app with feedback.

[mendral-app]

LGTM

The implementation is clean and well-tested. The riskiest part—normalizeIgnorePattern—correctly handles negation, anchoring, and the **/ prefix for backward-compat literals. One pre-existing concern worth noting: the inline comment stripping at line 1991 (strings.Index(line, "#")) will now corrupt glob patterns containing # (e.g., character classes [#abc]), but since that code is unchanged, it's outside the scope of this review. The changed code itself is correct.

_{Tag @mendral-app with feedback or questions. View session}

[mendral-app]

📋 Created Linear issue ENG-4085 — status: In Progress

• Assignee: unassigned (PR author not found in Linear workspace)
• Labels: Feature, CLI
• Estimate: M (4 files, ~152 lines changed)
• PR linked: ✅ Issue will auto-close when this PR merges

Auto-created because no Linear reference was found in the PR title, description, or branch name.

Note

Posted by Linear Issue Enforcer · Tag @mendral-app with feedback.