chore(meta): add development cascade to CLAUDE.md + vendor/ to gitignore

6-phase cascade: wiki content → economics → planetary maps → player
control → world gen → detail coloring. Each phase completes before
the next begins. Agents must not discuss detail from later phases.

vendor/ added to .gitignore for cloned reference repos (8 Godot
plugins for world generation research).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

.gitignore

@@ -30,6 +30,9 @@ spikes/**/*.uid
 # Asset downloads (vendor archives, not game content)
 docs/assets/downloads/
 
+# Reference repos for investigation
+vendor/
+
 # Database (shared across worktrees at ../settledreach.db, not tracked)
 db/commonwealth.db*
 

CLAUDE.md

@@ -25,6 +25,21 @@ Full annotated tree: `.claude/rules/project-structure.md`
 
 See [docs/DEVOPS.md](docs/DEVOPS.md) for build, test, lint, and CI procedures. All development operations go through the top-level `Makefile` — run `make` for a summary of targets.
 
+## Development Cascade — First Things First
+
+Development follows a strict cascade. Each phase has a concrete deliverable. **Do NOT discuss, design, or implement detail from a later phase while an earlier phase is incomplete.** If you encounter references to later-phase detail (room grammar, NPC bundles, heritage tokens, etc.) in documents or decisions, either ignore them silently and stay at the correct level, or flag that the reference is dragging attention to the wrong scope level and suggest it be rephrased or moved.
+
+| Phase | Focus | Deliverable |
+|-------|-------|-------------|
+| 1 | Wiki content complete — all planets, moons, stations, heightmaps, artwork | Implant-ready Godot map of the Reach with click-throughs + wiki/GTTR popups |
+| 2 | Economics layer — supply/demand, transport, political/social pressure, corporations, supply chains | Economics spreadsheets/graphs with runtime-tweakable simulation |
+| 3 | Planetary/moon maps & station layouts — cities, rivers, mountains, roads, biomes, rail | Atlas of the Reach (implant app) |
+| 4 | Player control scheme — 2-floor test map, character rendering, walls/stairs/doors, lighting | Player viewport with final-version assets |
+| 5 | World generation (tile/chunk/block) — walkable world, parallel asset pipeline | Walkable generated world + asset catalog |
+| 6 | Detail coloring — room-level NPC population, cultural room grammar | Only when the world is walkable |
+
+**v0.2 target is dropped.** No scoping negotiations. Build the base systems fully.
+
 ## Agent Instructions
 
 ### Team boundaries