Ignoring Files

Most projects produce files that should never be submitted: build output, editor caches, logs, and local settings. A .chkignore file tells Checkpoint to leave them out. It works like Git's .gitignore.

A second file, .chkhidden, handles a different case: files that are in the repo, but whose local changes you never want to see or submit.

Quick start

Create a file named .chkignore at the root of your workspace, list one pattern per line, and submit it so the whole team shares the same rules. For an Unreal Engine project, a good start is:

# Build output and caches
Binaries/
Intermediate/
Saved/
DerivedDataCache/
.vs/

# IDE and project files generated locally
*.sln
*.VC.db
.idea/

# Logs
*.log

Checkpoint notices edits to .chkignore on its own. If the desktop app still shows a file you just ignored, open the Refresh dropdown on the Files or Pending tab and choose Refresh (Reload Ignore/Hidden).

Ignore rules only apply to untracked files

As in Git, .chkignore only affects files that are not already in the repo. If a file has already been submitted, adding a rule that matches it changes nothing: edits to it still show up as pending changes, and deleting it still shows as a delete.

To stop tracking a file that is already in the repo:

1. Add a rule for it to .chkignore.
2. Delete the file (or move it out of the workspace), then stage and submit the deletion.

From then on, a new copy of the file at that path is ignored.

If what you want is to keep a file in the repo but stop seeing your local changes to it, use .chkhidden instead.

Pattern syntax

.chkignore uses the same pattern syntax as .gitignore:

Pattern	Matches
*.log	Any file ending in .log, in any folder
Saved/	Any folder named Saved and everything in it (a trailing / matches folders only)
/Build	Build at the root only (a leading / anchors the pattern)
Config/Local.ini	That path, relative to the folder holding the .chkignore
Content/**/Temp	Temp at any depth under Content
Shot_??.exr	? matches one character
[Tt]emp/	[...] matches one of the listed characters
!Keep.log	Negation: un-ignores something an earlier rule ignored
# comment	Lines starting with # are comments; blank lines are ignored

A few details:

• A pattern containing a / (other than at the very end) is anchored to the folder the .chkignore file is in. A pattern with no / matches at any depth below it.
• Matching ignores letter case. *.PNG and *.png are the same rule.
• Backslashes are path separators, so Windows-style rules like Saved\Logs\ work. Unlike Git, a backslash is not an escape character, so you can't escape a leading # or !.
• Later rules win. A ! rule only un-ignores files matched by earlier rules. As in Git, you can't un-ignore a file inside a folder that is itself ignored, because Checkpoint never looks inside ignored folders.

Nested .chkignore files

You can put a .chkignore in any folder. Its rules apply to that folder and everything below it, and are read after the rules from the folders above, so a deeper file can override a shallower one with !. A .chkignore inside an ignored folder is never read.

Ignore files from the desktop app

Right-click an untracked file in the desktop app and choose Add to ignored list. You can ignore the file's name, every file with its extension (*.ext), or its exact path. The rule is added to the .chkignore at the workspace root. Remove from ignored list takes it out again.

Hide local changes with .chkhidden

Some files belong in the repo but get rewritten by tools on every run, such as editor layout files or per-user settings with shared defaults. You need them in the repo, but you don't want your local changes cluttering the Pending view or ending up in a submit.

List those files in a .chkhidden file. It uses the same syntax and nesting rules as .chkignore. Files it matches:

• stay in the repo (hiding a file does not delete or untrack it);
• never show up as pending changes, even when you edit or delete them locally;
• are therefore never staged or submitted from your workspace.

If a file matches both .chkignore and .chkhidden, hidden wins.

To submit a deliberate change to a hidden file, remove (or negate with !) its rule, submit the change, and put the rule back.

In the desktop app, right-click a file and choose Add to hidden changes list or Remove from hidden changes list. These edit the .chkhidden at the workspace root.

Ignored by default

A few files are ignored everywhere, even without a .chkignore, because operating systems create them on their own:

• .DS_Store and ._* (macOS)
• Thumbs.db and desktop.ini (Windows)

If your project really needs one of them, un-ignore it with a ! rule, for example !desktop.ini.

What can never be submitted

Some things are left out no matter what your ignore files say:

• The .checkpoint folder at the root of each workspace. It holds the workspace's own bookkeeping. A path whose first folder is .checkpoint is refused, in any spelling.
• Other workspaces nested inside yours, including linked repos mounted in a subfolder. Their files belong to their own repo, so stage and submit them from that workspace.
• Links to folders (symbolic links and Windows junctions). Checkpoint does not follow them, so nothing inside them is submitted. A link to a file is submitted as a copy of the file it points to.
• Paths that some OS can't store, such as names with < > : " | ? *, names ending in a dot or space, or reserved Windows names like CON and NUL. The submit is refused and tells you which path is the problem.

Related patterns elsewhere

Team Sync and artifact uploads also take lists of path patterns (for example, which artifact files to collect). They use the same .chkignore-style syntax.