CI Artifacts: exclude paths

So this is my problem:

During my CI build I want to cache my whole build folder but pass only a subset of it as an artifact. Something like:

build_job:
    stage: build
    cache:
        key: build_cache
        paths:
            - build/
    script:
        - mkdir -p build && cd build && cmake .. && make
    artifacts:
        paths:
            - build/
        except:  #This is not a valid keyword
            - build/dont-include-this-folder

Is there any way to make this without listing all the folders and files I need? I can't find any info on this in the doc.

Suggested tags: CI, feature request.

I need this feature as well, can anyone point it out?

In addition to author: maybe allow some scripts after caching and before artifacts?

My situation:

artifacts:
  paths:
  - .
cache:
  paths:
  - ./node_modules/

So, I don't want to include node_modules in artifacts, but it is important to use them as cache.

Moreover, this configuration add .git in artifacts, which also needed to be excluded.

Added ~147988 label

Added 19173 gitlab-foss14213 labels

Thanks for suggestion. I think it makes sense. /cc @markpundsack

I have PHP project with vendor directory (composer dependencies) and it could have size almost 1 Gb, so saved artifacts has a large size on disk. Therefore it is very important and useful feature. We need it!

I have separated the dependencies, build, and pack parts of my pipeline into stages. I don't want to list every file needed for the the artifacts in between the build and pack parts.

mentioned in issue gitlab-foss#27570 (moved)

@grzesiek Is this being considered? I'd really only like to exclude the vendor/ folder. Now I'm forced to explicitely list every single file/folder just because of that.

@iluuu1994 It would be indeed a great feature. Let's pass this to our product team. /cc @bikebilly

mentioned in issue gitlab-foss#33032 (closed)

Related: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/4072

I can't remember but there was an issue describes the same context with extracting only the target directory(e.g. "**/bin/**"). I think it's can be an alternative solution.

@bikebilly It shouldn't be too difficult, but it is not a trivial change either; weight 4/10.

Cool! Good to hear that you're interested in implementing this feature.
Note that this should also work with untracked: true. For example:

artifacts:
    untracked: true
    except:
    - vendor/

This is basically what I'd like to do.

https://gitlab.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/78814 (internal use)

-- Deleted Auto-Responder --

@maximilian-walter

This is hilarious

changed weight to 4

moved from gitlab-foss#15453 (moved)