Best practices for Perforce ignore rules with Engine Source and mixed binary folders

BLysychenko
Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:56:49 +0000
Platform & Builds

We are currently using a local copy of the UE5 source code alongside our project and would like to clarify the best practices for managing Perforce ignore rules for engine binaries.

The main challenge is that several engine directories contain a mix of shippable binaries (required for the engine to run) and generated artifacts (derived during the build process). Manually adding every generated file to the ignore list is not ideal, as it is error-prone and could negatively impact p4 reconcile performance as the file list grows. Furthermore, this approach makes it difficult to track when new shippable binaries are added or existing ones are removed during engine updates.

How does Epic Games recommend structuring .p4ignore.txt or workspace mappings to cleanly separate these files without manual maintenance?

This is how it works now.
```
Binaries/Win64
!Binaries/Win64/LivePlusPlus/
!Binaries/Win64/RedDebugger/
!Binaries/Win64/UnrealBuildAccelerator/
!Binaries/Win64/UnrealInstrumentation/
!Binaries/Win64/AnalysisTabUtils.exe
!Binaries/Win64/AnalysisTabUtils.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/CmdLink-BuildSettings.dll
!Binaries/Win64/CmdLink-Core.dll
!Binaries/Win64/CmdLink-TraceLog.dll
!Binaries/Win64/CmdLink.exe
!Binaries/Win64/EpicWebHelper.exe
!Binaries/Win64/EpicWebHelper.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/EpicWebHelperarm64.exe
!Binaries/Win64/EpicWebHelperarm64.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/LiveCodingConsole.exe
!Binaries/Win64/MinidumpDiagnostics.exe
!Binaries/Win64/MinidumpDiagnostics.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/PatchTabView.exe
!Binaries/Win64/PatchTabView.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/ProcessSymbols.bat
!Binaries/Win64/UnrealTraceServer.exe
!Binaries/Win64/UnrealTraceServer.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/UnrealVersionSelector-Win64-Shipping.exe
!Binaries/Win64/UnrealVersionSelector-Win64-Shipping.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/crashpad_handler.exe
!Binaries/Win64/iostore_analysis.exe
!Binaries/Win64/iostore_analysis.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/msdia140.dll
!Binaries/Win64/radpatcher.exe
!Binaries/Win64/radpatcher.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/zen.exe
!Binaries/Win64/zen.pdb
!Binaries/Win64/zenserver.exe
!Binaries/Win64/zenserver.pdb
```

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