The splicer can ignore crates (Cargo.toml files) that appear in certain fixed paths: https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_rust/blob/3585384b93cf10c6e5b1c1ba07d7405e596bd6d6/crate_universe/src/splicing/splicer.rs#L42 If a directory is bazel-ignored, then the splicer should skip that too.