chore(git): untrack bindings/python/target build artifacts

[h4x0r]

What this is

Index hygiene only. 781 files removed from the git index, zero files removed from disk, no source change.

The diff will render as ~781 deletions. Nothing was deleted — git rm -r --cached drops index entries and leaves the working tree untouched. The only content change in this PR is 4 lines in .gitignore.

The defect

781 cargo build artifacts under bindings/python/target/ were tracked in git: .fingerprint/ entries, dep-lib-*, invoked.timestamp, *.json metadata.

The root .gitignore had /target/ — a leading slash anchors the pattern to the repo root, so it never covered bindings/python/target/. (bindings/python is a nested cargo package with its own Cargo.toml, outside the workspace members list, so it gets its own target/.) The fix makes the pattern unanchored so it matches a target/ at any package root.

Why it matters beyond bloat

Tracking these made an ordinary maintenance operation destructive: a routine cargo sweep across the fleet deleted them, because every reasonable tool assumes everything under target/ is regenerable. They were restored with git restore, but the next person running any target/-cleaning tool hits the same trap.

Published crate payload

Not affected. bindings/python has its own Cargo.toml, so cargo omits the whole directory from the package — cargo package --list -p forensicnomicon returns 191 files with 0 under bindings/. Consumers of forensicnomicon 1.10.0 were not downloading build fingerprints.

But that protection was incidental, and worth naming as a latent risk. The [package] exclude key lists archive/, scripts/, tests/, fuzz/ — it does not list bindings/. The 781 files stayed out of the payload purely because cargo omits a subdirectory that contains its own Cargo.toml. Delete or rename bindings/python/Cargo.toml, or fold bindings/python into the workspace members, and build fingerprints would have started shipping to crates.io with no warning at all. Untracking them removes the dependence on that side effect.

Nothing depended on the tracked state

• grep -rn 'bindings/python/target' .github scripts — no matches.
• cargo build --workspace — clean.
• cargo test --workspace — 3633 passed, 4 ignored, 26 suites.

Verification

$ git ls-files | grep -cE '(^|/)target/'
0

$ git status --porcelain
(empty — clean tree)

$ find bindings/python/target -type f | wc -l
781

Note for reviewers with other open PRs

Branched from origin/main. The diff is .gitignore plus index removals under bindings/python/target/, so it should not collide with the source changes in #24 or #25.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code