Excluding File From Publish Directory in VS 2017 .NET Core Project

Replace your code

<Content Include="wwwroot\.gitignore"> with 
<None Include="wwwroot\.gitignore">

How did I get to know this? While going through the code of .csproj file I came across this tag (None) that was put by visual studio in front of all publish profiles' file (.pubxml). so I tried with my files as well and it worked like a charm.

The MSDN article on the build action property explains the differences.

You have to use Update like so:

<Content Update="wwwroot\.gitignore">
  <CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory>
</Content>