diff --git a/common/config_list.inc b/common/config_list.inc
index efccbe182ca0..ccece852c8a4 100644
--- a/common/config_list.inc
+++ b/common/config_list.inc
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
     core.package_id:default_non_embed_mode: By default, 'minor_mode'
     core.package_id:default_python_mode: By default, 'minor_mode'
     core.package_id:default_unknown_mode: By default, 'semver_mode'
+    core.scm:excluded: List of excluded patterns for builtin git dirty checks
     core.sources:download_cache: Folder to store the sources backup
     core.sources:download_urls: List of URLs to download backup sources from
     core.sources:exclude_urls: URLs which will not be backed up
diff --git a/reference/conanfile/attributes.rst b/reference/conanfile/attributes.rst
index fb4ddc8d61f1..f735f3d958e8 100644
--- a/reference/conanfile/attributes.rst
+++ b/reference/conanfile/attributes.rst
@@ -118,6 +118,13 @@ be computed. It can take three different values:
   approach allows multiple `conanfile.py` files to exist within the same Git repository,
   with each file exported under its distinct revision.
 
+When ``scm`` or ``scm_folder`` is selected, the Git commit will be used, but by default
+the repository must be clean, otherwise it would be very likely that there are uncommitted
+changes and the build wouldn't be reproducible. So if there are dirty files, Conan will raise
+an error. If there are files that can be dirty in the repo, but do not belong at all to the
+recipe or the package, then it is possible to exclude them from the check with the ``core.scm:excluded``
+configuration, which is a list of patterns (fnmatch) to exclude.
+
 
 
 upload_policy