How to do negative pattern for VS Code files exclude

The short answer is No, VS Code have not support it yet. (2016-12-09)

So is this the end ? No

Here is the work around.

files.exclude
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"files.exclude": {
"**/node_modules": false,
"**/node_modules/.*": true,
// hide all folders that doesn't start with letter 'a'
"**/node_modules/[bcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz]*": true,
// hide all folders that doesn't start with 'ap'
"**/node_modules/a[abcdefghijklmnoqrstuvwxyz]*": true
}

Kudos to 1-9@Github