diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 583f5c46..95dff96e 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -29,3 +29,6 @@ obj/
 # Repo-local .NET SDK installed by the cloud bootstrap on a fresh VM — a
 # multi-hundred-MB tool tree, not repository content.
 .dotnet/
+
+# Personal overrides beside tracked convention layers (docs/conventions/work-items.local.yaml)
+docs/conventions/**/*.local.*
diff --git a/.work-item-tracker.json b/.work-item-tracker.json
deleted file mode 100644
index 978f6f93..00000000
--- a/.work-item-tracker.json
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,7 +0,0 @@
-{
-  "schema_version": "1.0",
-  "provider": "github",
-  "config": {
-    "lease_ttl_hours": 24
-  }
-}
diff --git a/docs/conventions/work-items.yaml b/docs/conventions/work-items.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..8fc0385f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/conventions/work-items.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+tracker:
+  schema_version: "1.0"
+  provider: "github"
+  config:
+    lease_ttl_hours: 24