"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > why is there no mention of files ignored via a user's > core.excludesFile configuration? IIUC, core.excludesFile is a much much later invention made long after everybody lost interest in updating "git clean", let alone its documentation. The support for the configuration variable was added to the internal API used to access exclude mechanism, so "clean", together with other users of the same API, got it for free when it was added, and nobody bothered to update the documentation of "clean". In other words, a short answer is because you haven't made it to mention it ;-).