Question

A platform team excludes the repository directory /libs/pricing-engine/** using Copilot content exclusions. A developer working in a separate microservice repository writes code that imports and calls a public helper function whose name and signature happen to match one defined in the excluded pricing-engine directory. The developer is surprised when Copilot completions in the microservice still suggest usages referencing that function name. What is the best explanation for this behavior?

Accepted Answer

Content exclusions prevent the excluded files' contents from being used as context, but they do not erase knowledge of a symbol's name if it appears or is typed in a non-excluded file the developer is editing.

Answer

Content exclusions are only enforced for chat, so completions ignore them entirely and can freely read the excluded files.

Answer

The exclusion failed because directory-scoped glob patterns cannot match nested paths, so the pricing-engine files were never actually excluded.

Answer

Copilot retroactively trained on the excluded function, so the exclusion cannot remove what the model already learned from that repository.