Ignore unnecessary builds to optimize your build times at Netlify, which intelligently checks for changes in a site's base directory by comparing files in the last known version to the latest updated version and automagically skips a build if no change is detected. However, this doesn't always work, especially with dependabot updates, where users have control over how and what gets built using the ignore setting in the configuration. Users can add an ignore attribute to their configuration to easily ignore unnecessary builds, such as ignoring dependabot updates by using Git log to surface changes in a commit and ignoring the build accordingly. This process helps conserve build minutes and is incredibly handy for building fast, making it a useful optimization technique for deployments.