Excluding files from review

You exclude files from review with file exclusion patterns. Lines in excluded files never reach the AI reviewer and never count against your review credit (RC) usage. ADO Pilot ships a default exclusion list covering binary formats and lock files; you add your own patterns for generated code, build outputs, and vendored dependencies.

What the setting controls

Patterns are evaluated against the path of each file in the PR diff. A file is excluded if its path matches any pattern in the merged list (defaults plus your custom patterns).

Default exclusions

These exclusions are always applied — you do not need to add them yourself.

ADO Pilot always excludes these file types from review. Lines in these files do not count toward review credit (RC) usage.

Binary formats

• Images: .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .ico, .webp, .svg, .tif, .tiff, .avif, .heic, .heif
• Archives: .zip, .tar, .gz, .rar, .7z, .bz2, .xz, .cab
• Audio: .mp3, .wav, .flac, .aac, .m4a, .wma
• Video: .mp4, .mov, .avi, .mkv, .webm, .m4v
• Executables and libraries: .exe, .dll, .so, .dylib, .a, .lib
• Compiled bytecode: .class, .pyc, .wasm

Generated and machine-maintained files

• Lock files ending in .lock: yarn.lock, poetry.lock, Gemfile.lock, composer.lock
• Source maps: *.map

The default matcher uses the file's last-dot extension only. Lock files with a different extension — most importantly package-lock.json and pnpm-lock.yaml — are not excluded by default. If you do not want lock-file changes consuming review credits, add them to your org-level fileExclusionPatterns:

fileExclusionPatterns:
  - "**/package-lock.json"
  - "**/pnpm-lock.yaml"

The complete default list covers more than 150 extensions. Custom exclusion patterns you add stack on top of these defaults.

Glob pattern syntax

The same glob syntax used for branch filters:

Example: .NET / C#

Skip Roslyn-generated partials, designer files, and the obj/ and bin/ build directories.

fileExclusionPatterns:
  - "*.generated.cs"
  - "*.Designer.cs"
  - "**/obj/**"
  - "**/bin/**"
  - ".vs/**"

Example: Node.js / TypeScript

Skip dependencies, build outputs, and minified bundles.

fileExclusionPatterns:
  - "node_modules/**"
  - "dist/**"
  - "build/**"
  - ".next/**"
  - "*.min.js"
  - "*.bundle.js"

Example: Python

Skip virtualenvs, bytecode caches, and packaging artifacts.

fileExclusionPatterns:
  - "venv/**"
  - ".venv/**"
  - "__pycache__/**"
  - "*.egg-info/**"
  - "build/**"
  - "dist/**"

Example: Go

Skip vendored modules and generated protobuf bindings.

fileExclusionPatterns:
  - "vendor/**"
  - "*.pb.go"
  - "gen/**"

Additive merge across scopes

Exclusions from every scope combine. If your organization excludes *.generated.cs and a repository adds *.min.js, both patterns apply to that repository.

Organization:  ["*.generated.cs", "package-lock.json"]
Project:       ["build/**"]
Repository:    ["*.min.js", "dist/**"]
Effective:     ["*.generated.cs", "package-lock.json", "build/**", "*.min.js", "dist/**"]

In the example above the organization has explicitly added package-lock.json to its exclusions — package-lock.json is not excluded by default (see Default exclusions).

A file is excluded if it matches any pattern in the effective set, plus the default exclusions. See Org, project, and repo settings hierarchy.

Cost impact: excluded lines are free

Excluded lines never reach the AI reviewer, so they do not count when ADO Pilot calculates RC usage for a PR. This is the single biggest lever for controlling cost on PRs that touch generated or vendored content.

For details on how ADO Pilot calculates RC consumption, see the billing documentation.

What happens when every file is excluded

If every file in the PR matches an exclusion pattern, ADO Pilot detects an empty effective diff and skips the review. No comments are posted, no status check transitions to a result, and no RCs are charged.

Interaction with other settings

• Branch does not match the filter — Whole PR is skipped before exclusions are evaluated.
• Branch matches, all files excluded — Empty-diff skip path; 0 RC charged.
• Branch matches, some files excluded — Review runs on the remaining files; only those lines count toward RC.