How to ignore files when running `gcloud app deploy`?

Question

When I run

gcloud app deploy app.yaml

which files actually get uploaded?

The project folder contains folders and files such as

Answer 1

How does gcloud app deploy decide which files get uploaded?

It doesn't. It uploads everything by default. As mentioned in another response you can use the skip_files section in app.yaml as follows:

skip_files:
- ^(.*/)?#.*#$
- ^(.*/)?.*~$
- ^(.*/)?.*\.py[co]$
- ^(.*/)?.*/RCS/.*$
- ^(.*/)?\..*$
- ^(.*/)?\.bak$
- ^\.idea$
- ^\.git$

You can also use the --verbosity param to see what files are being deployed, i.e. gcloud app deploy app.yaml --verbosity=debug or gcloud app deploy app.yaml --verbosity=info per docs.