[nothrows]

sticking with ack. a tool for humans with decent .ignore file support. ag and rg never seem to ignore the subdirectories I want.

[burntsushi]

Can you give a specific example? I'd be happy to try and work though it with you! ripgrep certainly supports .ignore files. Last I checked, ack specifically doesn't support .ignore files: https://beyondgrep.com/feature-comparison/