There should be some way of marking a directory as being pruned without having to edit /etc/updatedb.conf. One method would be for the existence of a certain dot-file within the directory (like .MLOCATE_PURGE) to signal that the directory is to be purged. Another method would be to set a particular extended file attribute on directories to be purged.

Possible configuration options:

• Whether this feature is enabled.
• Users/groups who are allowed to use this feature, including ranges of user/group IDs
• Absolute paths under which this feature can be used (for example, only allow directories under /home to use this feature)
• Directory names which can not be pruned via this method.