@lively-france-2777 what version of Pants do you run? A few points: 1. your

./pants options

output shows a redundant entry, '/.provisioning/' is covered by '.*/' 2. I see on pantsbuild/pants master:

$ cat provisioning/BUILD 
not_a_target_type()
$ PANTS_IGNORE="+['/provisioning/']" ./pants --changed-parent=HEAD --changed-include-dependees=transitive test
...
SUCCESS
$ ./pants --changed-parent=HEAD --changed-include-dependees=transitive test
...
  File "/home/jsirois/dev/pantsbuild/jsirois-pants/src/python/pants/engine/legacy/source_mapper.py", line 108, in iter_target_addresses_for_sources
    for hydrated_targets in self._scheduler.product_request(HydratedTargets, subjects):
  File "/home/jsirois/dev/pantsbuild/jsirois-pants/src/python/pants/engine/scheduler.py", line 540, in product_request
    return self.products_request([product], subjects)[product]
  File "/home/jsirois/dev/pantsbuild/jsirois-pants/src/python/pants/engine/scheduler.py", line 517, in products_request
    raise ExecutionError('Received unexpected Throw state(s):\n{}'.format(cumulative_trace))

Exception message: Received unexpected Throw state(s):
Computing Select(AscendantAddresses(directory=u'provisioning'), =Collection.of(HydratedTarget))
  Computing Task(<function transitive_hydrated_targets at 0x7fb255193398>, AscendantAddresses(directory=u'provisioning'), =Collection.of(HydratedTarget))
    Computing TransitiveDependencies( =HydratedTarget, =BuildFileAddresses)
      Computing Task(<function addresses_from_address_families at 0x7fb25554f050>, AscendantAddresses(directory=u'provisioning'), =BuildFileAddresses)
        Computing Task(<function parse_address_family at 0x7fb255549578>, Dir(path='provisioning'), =AddressFamily)
          Throw(Failed to parse provisioning/BUILD:
name 'not_a_target_type' is not defined)
            Traceback (most recent call last):
              File "/home/jsirois/dev/pantsbuild/jsirois-pants/src/python/pants/engine/native.py", line 400, in extern_invoke_runnable
                val = runnable(*args)
              File "/home/jsirois/dev/pantsbuild/jsirois-pants/src/python/pants/engine/build_files.py", line 84, in parse_address_family
                address_mapper.parser))
              File "/home/jsirois/dev/pantsbuild/jsirois-pants/src/python/pants/engine/mapper.py", line 59, in parse
                raise MappingError('Failed to parse {}:\n{}'.format(filepath, e))
            MappingError: Failed to parse provisioning/BUILD:
            name 'not_a_target_type' is not defined

I’m using 1.3.0. And thanks, digging into

not_a_target_type()

made me notice that there’s an empty

BUILD

in pantsbuild/pants (the root folder), and after adding an empty

BUILD

in my source root my ignores started working and my tests ran.

Hrm. I'm very happy you found an empty BUILD as the workaround, but this is a highly non-obvious step to take. It seems to me, and should be eliminated or well documented. Juggling a release and a hotfix atm, but if you beat me to filing an issue about this, I'd be obliged.

I’ll try to make a small reproducible repo with it later today 🙂