diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 57a5fdd..ffcaf8d 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 .bundle
 node_modules
-public/feed.xml
 www
 server/auth.json
 server/test-blog*
diff --git a/bin/compile.sh b/bin/compile.sh
index 1583ecc..67a99ac 100755
--- a/bin/compile.sh
+++ b/bin/compile.sh
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@ function main() {
   rm -rf "$TARGET"
   "$HARP" compile . "$TARGET"
 
+  # clean up temporary feed
+  rm public/feed.xml
+
   echo "* munge html files to make them available without an extension"
   munge_html