I think it makes sense to re-use ````excludes```` for this purpose. I don't think full paths have ever been used. 

By looking through a couple of projects it looks like the intention was that items in that array should not be compiled or uploaded.

Example:

    "exclude": [
       "*.scss",
       "*.tmpl",
       ".sass-cache",
       "site.json",
       "*.scssc",
       "saved"
    ]