diff --git a/.dockerignore b/.dockerignore
index eb88ca4..c826fc0 100644
--- a/.dockerignore
+++ b/.dockerignore
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # Exclude everything that isn't strictly needed to build or run the dev images.
-# The dev Dockerfiles COPY . /app, so without this the image would bloat with
-# docs, scripts, git history, etc.
+# The dev Dockerfiles COPY source subpaths (frontend/, backend/, gradlew,
+# settings.gradle, etc.), so without this the image would bloat with docs,
+# scripts, git history, etc.
 
 # Build artifacts and caches (mounted as named volumes at runtime)
 .gradle
@@ -49,11 +50,13 @@ scripts/
 frontend/src/__tests__
 backend/src/test
 
-# Docker-related metadata (not needed inside the running image)
+# Docker metadata — Dockerfiles, .dockerignore, and compose files are not
+# needed inside the running image. Keep docker/*.conf and docker/entrypoint.sh
+# because frontend.prod.Dockerfile copies them into the production nginx image.
+docker/*.Dockerfile
 Dockerfile*
 .dockerignore
 docker-compose*.yml
-docker/
 
 # Misc
 *.log