item_1.sh reports are inconsistent when called from different working directories

[RussellManser-NCO]

Problem Description

When calling item_1.sh to compare a para package to prod, I got different results depending on my CWD.

$ cd ~
$ item_1.sh /lfs/h1/ops/prod/packages/rap.v5.1.23/ /lfs/h1/ops/para/packages/rap.v5.1.24/ 2>&1 | tee item_1.$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M).log
=======================================================-
exclude list = .git .gitconfig .git-credentials .svn __pycache__ *.o evs.v2.0.10.prod.def prod.20260615_1411.def *.mod item_1.20260805_1636.log *.stamp *.make *.camke exec rocoto dev docs fix
=======================================================-

M scripts/exrap_post.sh
A .gitignore
A release_notes_v5.1.24

$ cd /lfs/h1/nco/idsb/noscrub/russell.manser/projects/rap_v5_1_24/
$ item_1.sh /lfs/h1/ops/prod/packages/rap.v5.1.23/ /lfs/h1/ops/para/packages/rap.v5.1.24/ 2>&1 | tee item_1.$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M).log
=======================================================-
exclude list = .git .git* .svn __pycache__ *.o *.def *.mod item_1.20260805_1635.log *.stamp *.make *.camke exec rocoto dev docs fix
=======================================================-

M scripts/exrap_post.sh
A release_notes_v5.1.24

It seems that item_1.sh is attempting to automatically exclude some files based on their extensions (e.g., .log and .def) and prefixes (.git), but ends up ignoring .gitignore in the second case.

Expected Behavior

item_1.sh should have consistent behavior that is independent of the CWD.