How to ignore a particular directory or file for tslint?

Update for tslint v5.8.0

As mentioned by Saugat Acharya, you can now update tslint.json CLI Options:

{
  "extends": "tslint:latest",
  "linterOptions": {
      "exclude": [
          "bin",
          "lib/*generated.js"
      ]
  }
}

More information in this pull request.

---

This feature has been introduced with tslint 3.6

tslint \"src/**/*.ts\" -e \"**/__test__/**\"

You can now add --exclude (or -e) see PR here.

CLI

usage: tslint [options] file ...

Options:

-c, --config          configuration file
--force               return status code 0 even if there are lint errors
-h, --help            display detailed help
-i, --init            generate a tslint.json config file in the current working directory
-o, --out             output file
-r, --rules-dir       rules directory
-s, --formatters-dir  formatters directory
-e, --exclude         exclude globs from path expansion
-t, --format          output format (prose, json, verbose, pmd, msbuild, checkstyle)  [default: "prose"]
--test                test that tslint produces the correct output for the specified directory
-v, --version         current version

you are looking at using

-e, --exclude         exclude globs from path expansion

Currently using Visual Studio Code and the command to disable tslint is

/* tslint:disable */

Something to note. The disable above disables ALL tslint rules on that page. If you want to disable a specific rule you can specify one/multiple rules.

/* tslint:disable comment-format */
/* tslint:disable:rule1 rule2 rule3 etc.. */

Or enable a rule

/* tslint:enable comment-format */

More in depth on TSLint rule flags

In addition to Michael's answer, consider a second way: adding linterOptions.exclude to tslint.json

For example, you may have tslint.json with following lines:

{
  "linterOptions": {
    "exclude": [
      "someDirectory/*.d.ts"
    ]
  }
}