The TypeScript handbook has a good write up on tsconfig file.

The example in the handbook is:

exclude: [

    node_modules,

    **/*.spec.ts

]

Note the use of ** for any folder, and * (a single asterisk) for the file name wildcard.

You don't usually need to be any more specific, as I imagine you would want to exclude all spec files, not just files in a particular sub-directory.

When This Won't Work

There are cases when this won't work.

1. If you have also include the file in both include and exclude sections - include wins


2. If you are importing the excluded file into an included file.


3. If you are using an old version of the compiler (early versions of tsconfig didn't allow the wildcards)


4. You are compiling using tsc app.ts (or pass other arguments) - your tsconfig is ignored when you do this