diff --git a/scripts/build-archives.sh b/scripts/build-archives.sh
index cc8197f..af1e9b2 100755
--- a/scripts/build-archives.sh
+++ b/scripts/build-archives.sh
@@ -2,9 +2,10 @@
 # Build the frozen v0/v1/v2 archives from their source paths on apricot.
 # Run this ONCE (or to refresh). Output: .archive/platform.{0,1,2}.tar.zst
 #
-# Excludes: .git, node_modules, .turbo, dist, build, .next — these bloat
-# the archive without adding mining value. .git is excluded everywhere
-# because v0's .git alone is 229G.
+# These are CODE archives meant for mining patterns. ML model weights,
+# training data, large media, and CAPTCHA blobs are excluded — they're
+# not what we mine from. If you need a specific weight, fetch it from
+# its original training pipeline, not from these archives.
 
 set -euo pipefail
 
@@ -12,19 +13,59 @@ REPO_ROOT="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." && pwd)"
 ARCHIVE_DIR="$REPO_ROOT/.archive"
 mkdir -p "$ARCHIVE_DIR"
 
-# Excludes applied to every tarball
+# Excludes applied to every tarball.
+#
+# Layer 1 — vcs/build artifacts (always junk for code-mining)
+# Layer 2 — package manager caches (rebuildable)
+# Layer 3 — ML model directories (by convention name)
+# Layer 4 — ML model files (by extension)
+# Layer 5 — known bloat dirs found in v1
 EXCLUDES=(
+    # vcs / build
     --exclude='.git'
-    --exclude='node_modules'
-    --exclude='.turbo'
-    --exclude='dist'
-    --exclude='build'
-    --exclude='.next'
     --exclude='.gitlab-ci-local'
     --exclude='.playwright-mcp'
+    --exclude='.turbo'
+    --exclude='.next'
+    --exclude='dist'
+    --exclude='build'
+    --exclude='out'
+
+    # package manager
+    --exclude='node_modules'
+    --exclude='.pnpm-store'
+    --exclude='.yarn/cache'
+    --exclude='.cache'
+
+    # ML model directories (by convention)
+    --exclude='ml-service'
+    --exclude='models'
+    --exclude='checkpoints'
+    --exclude='weights'
+    --exclude='training/data'
+    --exclude='training_data'
+    --exclude='captcha-solver'
+
+    # ML model files (anywhere)
+    --exclude='*.gguf'
+    --exclude='*.safetensors'
+    --exclude='*.bin'
+    --exclude='*.ckpt'
+    --exclude='*.pth'
+    --exclude='*.pt'
+    --exclude='*.onnx'
+    --exclude='*.h5'
+
+    # large media not relevant for code mining
+    --exclude='*.mp4'
+    --exclude='*.mov'
+    --exclude='*.webm'
+    --exclude='*.zip'
+    --exclude='*.tar.gz'
+    --exclude='*.tar.zst'
 )
 
-# zstd level (-3 is fast/balanced; -19 max compression but slow)
+# zstd level (-3 fast; -19 max). Default 3.
 ZSTD_LEVEL="${ZSTD_LEVEL:-3}"
 
 build_archive() {
@@ -68,7 +109,7 @@ build_archive "platform.0" \
 build_archive "platform.1" \
     "$HOME/Code/@projects/@lilith/lilith-platform"
 
-# v2 — lilith-platform.live (Quinn-personal, currently in prod — do not touch original)
+# v2 — lilith-platform.live (Quinn-personal — production; read-only)
 build_archive "platform.2" \
     "$HOME/Code/@projects/@lilith/lilith-platform.live"