diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 2a99b57..14fa6c4 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -11,6 +11,14 @@
 .localclaw/vault/
 .smallclaw/credentials/
 .smallclaw/vault/
+# The pattern above is anchored at the repo root, so per-user vaults one level down were never
+# matched and every user's vault.key + vault.enc got committed — the master key sitting beside
+# the file it decrypts. `.smallclaw/users/*/workspace/` (further down) covers that path today,
+# but only for files not already tracked, which is exactly how these survived. Match a vault at
+# any depth so a new one can never be added by a path nobody anticipated.
+**/vault/vault.key
+**/vault/vault.enc
+**/vault/vault-audit.log
 .smallclaw/*_api_key.txt
 .smallclaw/*_api_token.txt
 .smallclaw/*-key.txt