Use .claudeignore to Control What Claude Can See

Large repos are full of things Claude doesn't need to see — build artefacts, vendor directories, binary assets. A .claudeignore file at your project root tells Claude Code to skip them entirely, just like .gitignore works for Git.

node_modules/
vendor/
storage/
.git/
public/build/
*.lock
*.min.js

Drop this in your project root and Claude will stop reading (and suggesting changes to) those paths. The syntax is identical to .gitignore — glob patterns, negation with !, and directory markers with trailing /.

This matters for two reasons:

• Faster exploration — Claude won't waste time reading thousands of vendor files when searching your codebase
• Better suggestions — less noise means Claude focuses on your code, not third-party libraries

You can get more specific when needed:

# Ignore all logs except the current one
storage/logs/*
!storage/logs/laravel.log

# Ignore test fixtures but not the tests themselves
tests/fixtures/
tests/snapshots/

# Ignore large binary assets
*.woff2
*.png
*.sqlite

If you're ever unsure whether a file is being ignored, ask Claude to read it — you'll see immediately if it's blocked.

Think of .claudeignore as a focus filter — the less noise Claude has to wade through, the better its answers get.