consistently ignore or track .claude in each repo

[twistedmelonman]

find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 2 -type d -name .git -prune |
    sed 's|/\.git$||' |
    while read -r repo; do
        [[ -d "$repo/.claude" ]] || continue

        if git -C "$repo" ls-files --error-unmatch .claude >/dev/null 2>&1 ||
           git -C "$repo" ls-files .claude/ | grep -q .; then
            status="TRACKED"
        elif git -C "$repo" check-ignore -q .claude; then
            status="IGNORED"
        else
            status="NOT IGNORED"
        fi

        printf "%-12s %s\n" "$status" "$repo"
    done

currently (2026-10-02 0939) prints:

TRACKED ./networth-agent
IGNORED ./reliquarist
IGNORED ./swift-progress-indicator
TRACKED ./qwen-sidebar
IGNORED ./repo-template
IGNORED ./mac-dev-server-setup
IGNORED ./dotfiles
TRACKED ./kebab-tax
TRACKED ./financial-agent
TRACKED ./night-owl-studio
TRACKED ./slack-mcp
IGNORED ./gmail-newsletter-filter
IGNORED ./claude-code-workflows-agents
IGNORED ./homebrew-tap
NOT IGNORED ./claude-config
TRACKED ./spokane-snow
TRACKED ./dev-env
TRACKED ./lock-sync
IGNORED ./infinite-yaks
TRACKED ./tensegrity
IGNORED ./notes-mcp
IGNORED ./huddle-transcribe
TRACKED ./personify
TRACKED ./Gmail-MCP-Server
IGNORED ./mac-server-setup
IGNORED ./scripts
IGNORED ./vpn-lan-bridge
IGNORED ./LaunchAgents
IGNORED ./github-workflows
TRACKED ./claude-wrapper
IGNORED ./parmesan
TRACKED ./kebab-tax-netlify
IGNORED ./cleanroom
IGNORED ./archive-resolver
IGNORED ./nightowlstudiollc.github
NOT IGNORED ./smartwatermelon.github
TRACKED ./smartwatermelon-marketplace
TRACKED ./amelia-boone
TRACKED ./pr-review
TRACKED ./tnjcleaning

With no consistency or reasoning that I can find. We need to decide:
Track/commit? Ignore? And if Ignore, is it .gitignore or .git/info/exclude?

And apply this policy uniformly, ideally with the template.

[twistedmelonman]

Decision 2026-10-02: ignore by default, exceptions as needed

Every fleet repo (smartwatermelon + nightowlstudiollc, non-fork, non-archived) ignores .claude/ in its committed .gitignore. A repo that shares something under .claude/ uses .claude/* plus !.claude/<path> negations. (A plain .claude/ line cannot be negated: git never re-includes a file whose parent directory is excluded.)

Why the fleet was inconsistent (surveyed 2026-10-02 via the API, 40 repos)

• Scaffold committed by accident (12): the init hook has copied the scaffold since 2026-01-12, and nothing ignored it until dotfiles#232 (2026-08-24), so each repo's first init commit swept it in: amelia-boone, tnjcleaning, claude-wrapper, dev-env, lock-sync, personify, pr-review, projectinsomnia, qwen-sidebar, slack-mcp, smartwatermelon-marketplace, spokane-snow.
• settings.local.json committed (4): night-owl-studio, kebab-tax, kebab-tax-netlify, and tensegrity. tensegrity's is deliberate (.claude/* + !.claude/settings.local.json).
• Real shared content (2 + kebab-tax): financial-agent and networth-agent track pre-launch.sh and secrets.op.template; kebab-tax tracks secrets.op (an op:// reference only).
• Ignored only in .git/info/exclude on this machine (several): the hook writes there when a clone's .gitignore is already tracked. That is per clone, so it does not survive a new machine. The committed .gitignore of these repos has no rule.
• Already conformant (13): reliquarist, archive-resolver, claude-code-workflows-agents, dotfiles, github-workflows, gmail-newsletter-filter, huddle-transcribe, mac-dev-server-setup, mac-server-setup, parmesan, repo-template, scripts, vpn-lan-bridge.

Plan

1. One PR per non-conformant repo: add the .gitignore rule, git rm --cached the scaffold copies and settings.local.json (files stay on disk), negations where content is shared.
2. Deferred until after 2026-10-07: kebab-tax, kebab-tax-netlify. Skipped: claude-config-backup (backup repo).
3. A standards-check rule in github-workflows: a probe path under .claude/ must be ignored, and no tracked file under .claude/ may match an ignore rule (so shared files must be negated explicitly). Ships as a warning (surfaced in the daily digest since feat(digest): surface standards-check warnings in the digest #182), and becomes an error once the kebab repos conform.
4. The post-checkout hook keeps its .git/info/exclude fallback: it is the right behaviour for clones of repos outside the fleet, and the standards rule keeps fleet repos from needing it.