diff --git a/includes/common.inc b/includes/common.inc
index 0d4f3bb..0ae6e07 100644
--- a/includes/common.inc
+++ b/includes/common.inc
@@ -5516,10 +5516,10 @@ function drupal_system_listing($mask, $directory, $key = 'name', $min_depth = 1)
   // The folders here are front-end related and they have been added to avoid
   // issues with Drupal recursive scanning. In this case, we added node_modules
   // and bower_components. This also improves performance on frontend builds.
-  $ignore_directories = array(
+  $ignore_directories = variable_get('ignore_directories', array(
     'node_modules',
     'bower_components',
-  );
+  ));
   $no_mask = '/^(\..*)|' . implode('|', $ignore_directories) .  '$/';
 
   // Get current list of items.
diff --git a/includes/file.inc b/includes/file.inc
index af9ae66..8c95225 100644
--- a/includes/file.inc
+++ b/includes/file.inc
@@ -2108,10 +2108,10 @@ function file_scan_directory($dir, $mask, $options = array(), $depth = 0) {
   // The folders here are front-end related and they have been added to avoid
   // issues with Drupal recursive scanning. In this case, we added node_modules
   // and bower_components. This also improves performance on frontend builds.
-  $ignore_directories = array(
+  $ignore_directories = variable_get('ignore_directories', array(
     'node_modules',
     'bower_components',
-  );
+  ));
   $no_mask = '/^(\..*)|' . implode('|', $ignore_directories) .  '$/';
   // Merge in defaults.
   $options += array(
diff --git a/includes/theme.inc b/includes/theme.inc
index 21016de..664458a 100644
--- a/includes/theme.inc
+++ b/includes/theme.inc
@@ -1330,10 +1330,10 @@ function drupal_find_theme_templates($cache, $extension, $path) {
   // The folders here are front-end related and they have been added to avoid
   // issues with Drupal recursive scanning. In this case, we added node_modules
   // and bower_components. This also improves performance on frontend builds.
-  $ignore_directories = array(
+  $ignore_directories = variable_get('ignore_directories', array(
     'node_modules',
     'bower_components',
-  );
+  ));
   $no_mask = '/^(\..*)|' . implode('|', $ignore_directories) .  '$/';
 
   // Get a listing of all template files in the path to search.