How to Configure Sourcegraph Cody Context Filters to Exclude Sensitive Repositories from AI Context

When engineering organizations deploy Sourcegraph Cody across engineering teams, security and compliance leaders frequently raise a crucial governance concern: how can the enterprise ensure that proprietary algorithms, regulatory-restricted codebases (such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or ITAR data), or internal security tooling are never packaged as context and transmitted to third-party Large Language Models (LLMs)?

Sourcegraph Cody provides a centralized, server-enforced administrative mechanism called Cody Context Filters (cody.contextFilters). Managed directly within the Sourcegraph Site Configuration, context filters empower administrators to define strict inclusion and exclusion policies using regular expressions. These rules dictate exactly which repositories Cody can read to generate code completions, chat responses, and command outputs.

This guide details how engineering administrators can configure cody.contextFilters, unpacks the filtering logic and RE2 regular expression syntax, and outlines best practices for establishing multi-layered code privacy governance.

Prerequisites and Compatibility

Before configuring context filters, ensure that your infrastructure and developer workstations meet the following prerequisites:

• Sourcegraph Instance: Sourcegraph Enterprise version 5.4.0 or higher with an active Cody Enterprise license.
• Feature Flag: The cody-context-filters-enabled feature flag must be set to true.
• Supported IDE Clients:
  • VS Code extension version 1.20.0 or higher.
  • JetBrains extension version 6.0.0 or higher.
  • Sourcegraph Web client.

Client Compatibility and Enforcement

To prevent developers from bypassing enterprise boundaries using outdated IDE extensions, Sourcegraph enforces policy compliance across client versions:

On modern Sourcegraph instances, legacy clients that cannot interpret context filter directives will automatically block context access and instruct developers to upgrade their extensions, maintaining strict compliance posture.

Understanding the Configuration Schema

Context filters are declared in the Sourcegraph Site Configuration JSON under the top-level cody.contextFilters property. The schema accepts two primary arrays: include and exclude.

{
  "cody.contextFilters": {
    "include": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/example-corp\\/.*"
      }
    ],
    "exclude": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*-sensitive$"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/example-corp\\/core-payments.*"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Key Schema Rules:

• If cody.contextFilters is defined, it must specify at least one block: include, exclude, or both.
• Each block contains a list of objects containing the mandatory key repoNamePattern.
• repoNamePattern must adhere to RE2 regular expression syntax (the Google RE2 engine implemented in Go).
• In JSON, all regular expression backslashes must be escaped with a double backslash (\\). For instance, a literal dot must be written as \\., and forward slashes can be escaped as \\/ or written directly as /.

Filter Evaluation Logic: Include vs. Exclude

The behavior of Sourcegraph Cody depends entirely on how the include and exclude arrays are combined:

1. Default Behavior (cody.contextFilters omitted)

When the setting is absent, Cody has unrestricted context access across every repository indexed by Sourcegraph that the requesting user has permission to read.

2. Only include Rules Defined (Strict Allowlist)

Cody is strictly restricted to pulling context from repositories whose canonical names match at least one pattern in the include list. All other repositories are excluded by default.

• Ideal for organizations adopting a Zero-Trust AI rollout, granting AI access solely to vetted, low-risk public or shared services.
• A single match in the include array authorizes the repository.

{
  "cody.contextFilters": {
    "include": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/example-corp\\/frontend-.*"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/example-corp\\/shared-libraries$"
      }
    ]
  }
}

3. Only exclude Rules Defined (Denylist)

Cody can draw context from any repository except those matching at least one pattern in the exclude list.

• Ideal for organizations that want default developer productivity across general business code while blacklisting specific high-risk repositories (e.g., proprietary trading logic, biometric systems, payment vaults).
• Catch-all exclusions (e.g., .*) act as an immediate kill-switch, blocking Cody from fetching context across the entire instance.

{
  "cody.contextFilters": {
    "exclude": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/example-corp\\/crypto-vault$"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*payment-processing.*"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*-restricted$"
      }
    ]
  }
}

4. Both include and exclude Rules Defined (Refined Scoping)

When both lists are provided, a repository must satisfy two conditions simultaneously:

1. It must match at least one pattern in include.
2. It must not match any pattern in exclude.

Exclusion rules always override inclusion rules. In the example below, all repositories under example-corp are permitted, except for any repository containing compliance or ending in -secret:

{
  "cody.contextFilters": {
    "include": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/example-corp\\/.+"
      }
    ],
    "exclude": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*compliance.*"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*-secret$"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Step-by-Step Configuration Guide

Follow these steps to deploy and verify Cody context filters in your enterprise environment:

Step 1: Audit Repository Names in Sourcegraph

Cody matches repoNamePattern against the exact repository name as registered in Sourcegraph's database (typically formatted as <code-host>/<organization>/<repository>, such as github.com/acme-corp/billing-service or gitlab.internal.net/sec/auth-engine).

• Navigate to Site Admin > Repositories in the Sourcegraph web dashboard.
• Verify your naming conventions and catalog all repositories designated as sensitive, regulated, or restricted.

Step 2: Access the Site Configuration Editor

1. Log in to Sourcegraph with Site Administrator credentials.
2. Click your user avatar in the top navigation and select Site Admin.
3. In the left-hand navigation sidebar, select Configuration (located at /site-admin/configuration).

Step 3: Insert the cody.contextFilters Block

Locate a suitable position within the root JSON configuration object, insert your tailored filter block, and verify JSON syntax formatting.

{
  // ... other site settings ...
  "cody-context-filters-enabled": true,
  "cody.contextFilters": {
    "include": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/acme-corp\\/.*"
      }
    ],
    "exclude": [
      {
        "repoNamePattern": "^github\\.com\\/acme-corp\\/hft-algorithm$"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*proprietary.*"
      },
      {
        "repoNamePattern": ".*vault.*"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Step 4: Save and Apply Changes

Click Save changes at the bottom of the configuration page. Sourcegraph updates its running configuration without requiring a full instance restart.

Step 5: Validate Enforcement in Developer Clients

To verify that the policy is functioning as intended:

1. Open a project located in an excluded repository within VS Code or JetBrains IDE.
2. Trigger an autocomplete prompt or highlight a code block and initiate an inline edit command.
3. Observe the client response: Cody will decline code transmission, displaying an explanatory diagnostic message:

   Edit failed to run: file is ignored (due to cody.contextFilters Enterprise configuration setting)
   

4. In the Cody Chat window, attempt to @-mention a file or symbol from an excluded repository. Notice that excluded repositories do not appear in context suggestion lists, and Cody does not retrieve embeddings or text snippets from them.

Developer Experience and Feature Impact

Understanding how context filters affect developers in their daily workflows helps administrators communicate changes smoothly:

• General Chat Availability: Even when a developer works inside an excluded repository, Cody Chat remains open for general coding assistance (e.g., explaining algorithms, generating boilerplate, or debugging generic snippets). However, Cody will not inject local repository context into the prompt payload.
• Feature Restrictions: Certain advanced chat features, such as custom reusable Prompts that expect repository-wide context binding, may display error messages or be disabled when executed on excluded repositories.
• Autocomplete Suppression: Cody Autocomplete respects context filters in real time. If the active document belongs to an excluded repository, no contextual chunks from that codebase are dispatched to LLM endpoints.

Multi-Layered Governance: Context Filters vs. Alternative Controls

Enterprise code governance requires a defense-in-depth architecture. The table below illustrates where cody.contextFilters fits alongside other security capabilities in the Sourcegraph ecosystem:

By layering cody.contextFilters on top of native Sourcegraph repository access permissions and .cody/ignore files for local secrets, engineering organizations establish a watertight security boundary. Sensitive source code stays locked within your enterprise network, while your engineering teams benefit from generative AI acceleration across authorized projects.

References

• Manage Cody Context - Sourcegraph docs
• Cody Enterprise features - Sourcegraph docs
• Cody FAQs - Sourcegraph docs