Exclusion

Excluding dismisses content from consideration: a conscious decision that this content does not need archiving. Nothing is deleted. The files stay on disk and in the index; what changes is attention. Excluded sources are skipped by default in queries and archiving operations, and --include excluded shows them again.

An exclusion can be cleared at any time, returning the content to consideration. Clearing is itself recorded, as the restored transition. Nothing else lifts a dismissal: the exclusion holds through edits, moves, replacement, and a file reappearing after an absence.

Redundancy beside the archive is a common reason to let go, not the only one: corrupted files, known junk, and content that simply is not worth keeping are all exclusion’s territory.

Two levels

• Source-level exclusion dismisses a file at its path. Other copies of the same content are unaffected.
• Object-level exclusion dismisses content by hash. It is universal: it affects every source sharing that content, in source roots and archive roots alike, and any copy scanned later.

A source counts as excluded when either level applies: it is excluded itself, or its content is.

The record

Every exclusion is recorded as a decision with your optional --reason, and leaves a durable receipt. Exclusion is one of the three recorded fates, beside archived and deleted: the dismissal is part of the story, not a silent disappearance.

See canon exclude for the command surface.