repo-sweep

Interactive CLI tool that finds and removes build artifacts from your project directories. Useful when you want to free up disk space or transfer repos between machines without carrying along gigabytes of node_modules, virtual environments, build caches, and other files that get regenerated anyway.

Install

npm install -g repo-sweep

Or run it directly without installing:

npx repo-sweep

Usage

repo-sweep [directory] [options]

If no directory is given, the current directory is scanned.

# Scan current directory
repo-sweep

# Scan a specific directory
repo-sweep ~/Projects

# Only clean Node.js artifacts
repo-sweep --only node

# Only clean Node.js and Python artifacts
repo-sweep --only node,python

# Clean everything except build output
repo-sweep --exclude build

# Only show artifacts from projects inactive for 30+ days
repo-sweep --stale 30d

# Combine filters: only Node.js artifacts from inactive projects
repo-sweep --only node --stale 2w

# List all available categories
repo-sweep --list-categories

How it works

1. Recursively scans the target directory for known artifact folders
2. Shows an interactive list with sizes, file counts, and descriptions
3. You select what to delete (everything is pre-selected, deselect what you want to keep)
4. Deletes the selected directories and shows a summary of freed space

Keyboard controls

Key	Action
Up / k	Navigate up
Down / j	Navigate down
Space	Toggle selection
a	Select all
n	Select none
Enter	Confirm and delete
q	Quit without deleting

Categories

Filter what gets scanned with --only or --exclude:

Category	Directories
node	node_modules, bower_components, .pnpm-store
python	.venv, venv, __pycache__, .pytest_cache, .mypy_cache, .tox, .eggs
rust	target
ios	Pods, DerivedData
frontend	.next, .nuxt, .output, .svelte-kit, .angular, .astro, .docusaurus, .expo
cache	.cache, .parcel-cache, .turbo, .webpack, .sass-cache, .dart_tool, .gradle, .terraform, .playwright
build	build, dist, out, release, coverage
deploy	.vercel, .serverless

Stale project filtering

Use --stale to only target artifacts from projects you haven't worked on recently. The duration supports d (days), w (weeks), and m (months).

Activity is determined by checking the last modification time of files in the project directory (ignoring the artifact itself and .git).

Only artifacts larger than 100 KB are shown.

Requirements

Node.js 18 or later.

License

MIT