How to use exclude folder option in 'Delete workspace before build starts' section?

Question

I'd like to exclude node_modules folder from deleting, but it removes all workspace. I've already tried a lot of patterns with 'Apply pattern also on directories' option and without it.

Some of them: **/node_modules/**, */node_modules/*
I also found an issue https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-12783, but seams like I'm trying to use wrong pattern.

Answer 1

Sorry for the extra answer but nightmare's didn't get me all the way to the final result. Because of JENKINS-1278, if you want to exclude node_modules directories that are in child directories of the parent you have to exclude both the .git directories and the parent directory itself.

So let's say you have a directory layout like:

subModule1/
    node_modules/
    ...
subModule2/
    node_modules/
    ...

In this case you'll need to exclude the following directories:

**/.git/**
**/node_modules/**
subModule1
subModule2

If you do that, then everything inside of subModule1 and subModule2 will still get deleted (except the node_modules directory, of course). And Git will still get updated with the latest changes even though it's not completely blown away each time.

It works for me, and I do not have "Apply pattern also on directories" checked. It seems like that should be checked but according to that bug report you need to leave it unchecked.