How to specify what files and folders to index and what not to index

Background/Situation

There are projects with complex directory hierarchy, so that Rider doesn't always index all the necessary files by default. On the other hand, it might index files that a user does not wish to use/to navigate to/to be indexed.

Question

How to explicitly specify what files and directories need to be indexed and what don't need?

Answer

User can include and exclude files and folders by right-clicking on it in explorer -> Tools -> Start/Stop Index:

.

Performing this action commonly (but not always) writes to .idea/.idea.ProjectName/.idea/indexLayout.xml .

There is what this file looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project version="4">
  <component name="UserContentModel">
    <attachedFolders />
    <explicitIncludes>
      <Path>AvaloniaApplication1/bin</Path>
      <Path>AvaloniaApplication1/obj/project.nuget.cache</Path>
    </explicitIncludes>
    <explicitExcludes>
      <Path>AvaloniaApplication1/App.axaml.cs</Path>
    </explicitExcludes>
  </component>
</project>

If for some reason, one can't specify files/folders via UI, he can go to that file and specify files/folders "from backend":

• Add corresponding entries into .xml and save changes;
• Note: File doesn't accept wildcards (**/*.yml) -> no way to specify pattern or file types; The entry should be either a path to an exact file nor a path to an exact folder.

This file can be committed to VCS, so every developer cloned the project will get the same file indexing configuration.

When a folder for indexing is specified, any file under that folder will be indexed and become available for search/navigation (unless the file type is listed in Settings | Editor | File Types | Ignored Files and Folders)