Stop committing dist/ to the repo

[ejntaylor]

Summary

• Untrack dist/ and drop the .gitignore exception that kept it in version control
• Remove the Verify committed dist is current step from both the CI and publish workflows

Why

The committed dist/ predates publishing to npm — it existed so that npm install github:patchstack/connect would work in sandboxed environments (WebContainer/StackBlitz/Bolt/Lovable) that can't run the prepare script. Now that consumers install @patchstack/connect from the npm registry, that workaround is dead weight: every PR has to re-commit a ~180 KB build, and the git diff --exit-code -- dist gate breaks any PR that forgets to.

The prepare script (tsup) still builds dist/ on npm install, and the publish workflow runs npm run build before npm pack / npm publish, so the published tarball is unchanged.

What this breaks

Only npm install github:patchstack/connect in sandboxes that block lifecycle scripts. Anyone on npm is unaffected.

Test plan

• npm ci && npm run build produces dist/ locally
• npm pack --dry-run lists all expected dist/* files in the tarball
• git status shows dist/ as ignored after rebuild
• CI passes on this PR
• On the next release, the publish workflow builds and publishes cleanly

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[coderbuds]

Well-scoped cleanup removing generated dist files and updating workflows and .gitignore.

🎯 Quality: 75% Good · 📦 Size: Oversized — strongly consider breaking this down

📈 This month: Your 56th PR — above team average · Averaging Good

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