How to Exclude Specific Files from a GitLab Merge Request After Accidentally Merging Deployment Branch Configs?

Question

Problem

I accidentally pulled from a deployment branch (deploymentdev) into our main development branch (main) and pushed it. This brought deployment-specific configuration files (Jenkinsfile, .gitlab-ci.yml, Dockerfile) into the main branch.

Now, when creating a merge request from main to another deployment branch (deploymentstage), these configuration files are included in the changes, which will cause issues because:

1. Each deployment branch (dev/stage/test/prod) has its own specific versions of these files.
2. These files should never be merged between deployment branches.

What I've Tried

• Adding the files to .gitignore and running git rm --cached Jenkinsfile .gitlab-ci.yml Dockerfile, but the DevOps team says this disrupts CI-CD pipeline due to adding these files to .gitignore.
• Using git update-index --skip-worktree Jenkinsfile .gitlab-ci.yml Dockerfile, but the changes still appear in the merge request since this only affects the local repository, and the changes are already committed.
• Considering git reset --hard <commit_id>, but the problematic commits span from one year ago to two weeks ago, making this impractical.
• Trying to manually fix the files in deploymentstage while excluding these files, but this triggered CI/CD pipelines, which I want to avoid.

Important Context

• These config files are intentionally not in .gitignore because the DevOps team wants to track changes.
• There are many deployment branches, so manually editing all of them isn't feasible.
• Every time I create a merge request to deployment branches, the DevOps team has to manually replace these files when the CI/CD pipeline runs for the first time in that specific instance.

Question

How can I exclude specific files (Jenkinsfile, .gitlab-ci.yml, Dockerfile) from a GitLab merge request without removing them from the repository history or breaking our existing DevOps workflow?