I think the reason for this is to match how gitattributes[1] works (which is how gitignore works). It's not /necessarily/ a misfeature because it matches the ex

I think the reason for this is to match how gitattributes[1] works (which is how gitignore works). It's not /necessarily/ a misfeature because it matches the existing Git interface semantics, though I do agree it might be confusing to people who are not familiar with gitattributes (you could think of CODEOWNERS as a kind-of extension of gitattributes). [1]: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes