diff --git a/deploy b/deploy
index e5190f1..65db404 100755
--- a/deploy
+++ b/deploy
@@ -62,10 +62,13 @@ if [ "$WHAT" = content ] || [ "$WHAT" = all ]; then
     echo "=== Syncing content: $CONTENT_SRC/ → $LIVE/ ==="
     # --exclude=/releases/ keeps the live site's releases dir untouched
     # by content syncs. --exclude=.git so the .git dir doesn't end up
-    # under /usr/share/caddy.
+    # under /usr/share/caddy. --exclude=.claude keeps local Claude Code
+    # tooling state (settings.json, settings.local.json, etc.) off the
+    # public site.
     rsync -av --delete-after \
         --exclude='/releases/' \
         --exclude='/.git*' \
+        --exclude='/.claude/' \
         --exclude='/README.md' \
         --exclude='/LICENSE' \
         "$CONTENT_SRC/" "$LIVE/"