To tell Hugo to ignore files in the content directory, use this configuration in your hugo.yaml file:
module:
mounts:
- source: 'content'
target: 'content'
# Exclude files from the 'content' directory
excludeFiles:
- '**/__README.md'
- '**/*.drawio'
See also: Official Documentation on this feature
Hugo also supports the ignoreFiles directive but using the module way seems to be preferred.