if I understand correctly, .vscodeignore is meant for files that should be ignored when the extension is installed.

In npm, this is already done by the files property in package.json. More information can be found under the files section https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#files.

Where .vscodeignore is a blacklist of files that should not be installed, the files property is a whitelist of files that should be installed.

In my opinion, it would be way better to use the files property. Node package developers (should) already know about this setting and no extra file is used.

Originally posted at https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-extensionbuilders/issues/35#event-438763500