diff --git a/.ignore b/.ignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..615e581
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.ignore
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+# graft's cards are gitignored but should stay greppable: ripgrep reads
+# .ignore before .gitignore, so this re-admits the tree to search only.
+!graft/
+graft/.cache/
+graft/.graph/