What it does

Declutter reads your workspace ignore files and injects those patterns into files.exclude so the Explorer only shows you what matters. One click to hide, one click to restore — your pre-existing excludes are never touched.

Usage

Click the Declutter item in the status bar (bottom left):

State	Appearance	Meaning
Inactive	`○ Declutter` (dim)	Ignored files are visible
Active	`● Declutter` (bright)	Ignored files are hidden

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`declutter.configTarget`	`"workspace"`	Where to write `files.exclude` — `"workspace"` (`.vscode/settings.json`) or `"global"` (user settings, no git noise)
`declutter.includeNestedIgnoreFiles`	`false`	Also scan ignore files in subdirectories, not just the workspace root
`declutter.autoHideOnOpen`	`false`	Automatically activate hiding when a workspace is opened
`declutter.showNotifications`	`true`	Show info messages when toggling visibility on or off
`declutter.additionalPatterns`	`[]`	Extra glob patterns to hide in addition to those from ignore files

Example: additional patterns

"declutter.additionalPatterns": [
  "**/TODO.md",
  "**/*.bak"
]

How it works

On hide: reads .gitignore files (and optionally nested .gitignore files), converts patterns to VS Code glob syntax, merges with additionalPatterns, and writes them to files.exclude
On show: removes only the patterns Declutter added — any excludes you had before are left as they were

Pattern conversion rules

Pattern	VS Code glob	Notes
`*.log`	`*/.log`	No slash — matches anywhere in tree
`/dist`	`dist`	Leading `/` — root-relative
`node_modules/`	`**/node_modules`	Trailing `/` — directory marker, matches anywhere
`src/generated/`	`src/generated`	Contains slash — path-specific
`# comment`	(skipped)	Comments ignored
`!important.log`	(skipped)	Negations have no `files.exclude` equivalent

For nested .gitignore files, patterns are scoped to their directory:

File	Pattern	VS Code glob
`packages/alpha/.gitignore`	`build/`	`packages/alpha/**/build`
`out/generated/.gitignore`	`*.map`	`out/generated/*/.map`

Notes

configTarget: "workspace" writes to .vscode/settings.json — this will appear as a diff in shared repos. Use "global" to avoid that.
Negation patterns (!pattern) are silently skipped — files.exclude has no equivalent.
If you manually remove a pattern from files.exclude while Declutter is active, toggling off will skip it without error.