The chefignore file is used to tell knife which cookbook files in the chef-repo should be ignored when uploading data to the Chef server. The type of data that should be ignored includes swap files, version control data, build output data, and so on. .

The chefignore file can be located in any subdirectory of a chef-repo: /, /cookbooks, /cookbooks/COOKBOOK_NAME/, roles, etc. It should contain sections similar to the following:

Example of chefignore

# Ignore editor swap files
*~
*.sw[a-z]

# Ignore top-level Subversion data
*/.svn/*

# Ignore all files in a directory
files/default/subdirectory/*
files/default/subdirectory/**

# OS generated files #
######################
.DS_Store
Icon?
nohup.out
ehthumbs.db
Thumbs.db

# SASS #
########
.sass-cache

# EDITORS #
###########
\#*
.#*
*~
*.sw[a-z]
*.bak
REVISION
TAGS*
tmtags
*_flymake.*
*_flymake
*.tmproj
.project
.settings
mkmf.log

## COMPILED ##
##############
a.out
*.o
*.pyc
*.so
*.com
*.class
*.dll
*.exe
*/rdoc/

# Testing #
###########
.watchr
.rspec
spec/*
spec/fixtures/*
test/*
features/*
examples/*
Guardfile
Procfile
.kitchen*
.rubocop.yml

# SCM #
#######
.git
*/.git
.gitignore
.gitmodules
.gitconfig
.gitattributes
.svn
*/.bzr/*
*/.hg/*
*/.svn/*

# Berkshelf #
#############
Berksfile
Berksfile.lock
cookbooks/*
tmp

# Cookbooks #
#############
CONTRIBUTING*
CHANGELOG*
TESTING*

# Strainer #
############
Colanderfile
Strainerfile
.colander
.strainer

# Vagrant #
###########
.vagrant
Vagrantfile

# Travis #
##########
.travis.yml

Reference 

https://docs.chef.io/chef_repo.html#chefignore-files

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