This session (spanning March 11-13, 2026 across multiple Cowork sessions) took Sam's Projects folder from a 23GB mess of duplicate files, Windows desktop merges, scattered credentials, and nested git repos, and turned it into a clean, documented, git-tracked repository ready for multi-device sync via GitHub. The session also established an agent continuity system so that every future Claude session starts with a clear briefing and leaves an updated trail for the next one.
The work covered: full folder audit and deduplication, git initialization with a comprehensive .gitignore, brand assets curation, credential inventory, agent briefing document creation, skill updates, and documentation for GitHub sync.
Started with approximately 23GB across dozens of folders, including files merged in from a Windows desktop. The cleanup involved several passes.
Duplicate and obsolete projects were moved to _archive/ (gitignored, still on disk): Marketing_project, SEO_Project, Server-migration_project, Spanish-site_project, Janelle Repo, Activity_Logs_Project.
Large binaries were deleted outright: Screaming Frog DMG (802MB), SQL dumps (253MB x3), public_html .git directory (814MB), metasync.log (174MB), uploads zip (294MB), and all .mp4 video files.
Loose files were sorted into proper project folders. Nested .git directories inside Template-Refresh and Litify were removed (these caused bus errors and embedded repository warnings). Empty directories were cleaned across all projects through multiple passes.
Windows carriage returns were stripped from Litify_AI_Integration_Project/.env using sed. Initially flagged as "malformed" PRODUCE8/M365 lines, but they turned out to be valid service entries with Windows line endings on every line.
Created a comprehensive .gitignore covering: all credential files (.env, .md files with passwords), the _archive folder, large media (all image formats globally), database dumps, binary files, project-specific exclusions (Website_project/public_html at 1.6GB, Template-Refresh .docx files at 693MB, UPS-Case evidence files).
The .gitignore uses a whitelist pattern for brand assets:
!brand-assets/
!brand-assets/**
brand-assets/.DS_Store
The explicit .DS_Store exclusion was needed because the whitelist overrides the global .DS_Store rule.
Result: ~1,150 tracked files, ~48MB (down from 23GB on disk). 15 local commits made.
Created a curated brand-assets/ folder tracked by git despite global image exclusions. Contains: