dev-purge

Find and clean build artifacts, dependency folders, and cache directories across all your projects. One command to reclaim gigabytes of disk space.

What it looks like

$ dev-purge --dry-run

┌──────────────────────────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────────────┬──────────┬──────────────┐
│ Project                      │ Framework    │ Bloat                      │ Size     │ Modified     │
├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ cloud/frontend               │ Next.js      │ .next (2.2 GB) build       │ 3.1 GB   │ 1 day ago    │
│                              │              │ node_modules (926 MB) deps │          │              │
├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ cloud/backend                │ Python       │ .venv (535 MB) deps        │ 536 MB   │ today        │
│                              │              │ .ruff_cache (448 KB) cache │          │              │
│                              │              │ .pytest_cache (77 KB) cache│          │              │
├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────────────┼──────────┼──────────────┤
│ my-app/ios                   │ iOS          │ Pods (981 MB) deps         │ 981 MB   │ 6 months ago │
│                              │ (CocoaPods)  │ build (339 KB) build       │          │              │
└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────────────┴──────────┴──────────────┘

  Summary: 3 projects • 7 bloat directories • 4.6 GB reclaimable
  By category: deps 2.5 GB • build 2.2 GB • cache 525 KB

Install

npm install -g dev-purge

Or run without installing:

npx dev-purge

Usage

dev-purge                         # Cycle through projects, y/n each
dev-purge ~/projects              # Scan a specific directory
dev-purge --dry-run               # Show bloat without deleting
dev-purge -a                      # Single confirmation to delete all
dev-purge -a --older-than 1y      # Nuke everything older than a year
dev-purge -a --category cache --older-than 6m  # Nuke old caches
dev-purge --category deps         # Only node_modules, venv, Pods, etc.
dev-purge -s 100m                 # Only show bloat > 100 MB
dev-purge -s 0                    # Show everything (no size minimum)
dev-purge --json                  # Machine-readable JSON output
dev-purge --watch                 # Real-time disk usage monitoring

Interactive mode (default)

Cycles through each project and asks y/n. Shows the project name, framework, bloat directories, total size, and age. Ctrl+C to stop anytime.

  [1/18] finance-landing-page (Next.js) — 1.1 GB • 1 month ago
         node_modules (801.7 MB), .next (315.0 MB)
  Clean? (y/n)

Delete all

dev-purge -a shows the full table then asks once to delete everything. Combines with filters:

dev-purge -a --older-than 6m            # everything untouched for 6 months
dev-purge -a --category cache           # all cache dirs, one confirmation
dev-purge -a --category deps -s 100m    # large dependency dirs only

JSON output

dev-purge --json | jq '.summary'
dev-purge --json | jq '.projects[] | select(.totalBytes > 1000000000)'

Watch mode

dev-purge --watch

Refreshes every 5 seconds. Useful for monitoring disk usage during development.

Categories

Filter by category with --category:

| Category | Directories | |---|---| | deps | node_modules, .pnpm-store, .yarn, vendor, bower_components, Pods, venv, .venv | | build | .next, .nuxt, .output, .svelte-kit, .angular, .expo, .vercel, dist, build, out, target, DerivedData | | cache | .cache, .parcel-cache, .turbo, .vite, __pycache__, .pytest_cache, .mypy_cache, .ruff_cache, .gradle, .dart_tool | | test | coverage, .nyc_output, storybook-static |

Multiple categories: --category deps,build

All flags

--dry-run                Scan only, don't delete anything
-a, --all                Delete all found bloat with single confirmation
--older-than <dur>       Filter by project age (30d, 2w, 6m, 1y)
--category <cat>         Filter by category (comma-separated)
-s, --min-size <size>    Minimum size to show (default: 1m, use -s 0 for all)
-d, --depth <n>          Max scan depth (default: 6)
--ide                    Also scan IDE caches (.cursor, .vscode, .idea)
--json                   Output as JSON
--watch                  Real-time monitoring
-h, --help               Show help

Smart defaults

• 1 MB minimum size — tiny cache dirs (sub-KB __pycache__, etc.) are hidden by default. Use -s 0 to see everything.
• Framework detection — automatically identifies Next.js, React, Python, Rust, Go, and 20+ other frameworks by reading project files. Python is also inferred from __pycache__/.venv when no project marker exists.
• Safe scanning — skips language runtimes (.pyenv, .nvm, .rustup, go/pkg), IDE internals, virtualenvs, and system directories. Won't flag build/dist/vendor unless the parent has a project marker file.
• Generic dir protection — build, dist, out, vendor, target, and coverage are only flagged inside actual projects (determined by the presence of package.json, Cargo.toml, requirements.txt, etc.).

How it works

1. Scanner recursively walks directories (parallel, batched) with configurable depth
2. Detector identifies bloat directories, categorizes them, and measures size
3. Display renders a sorted table (biggest first) with colored sizes and category breakdown
4. Cleaner deletes selected directories with progress feedback

Platform support

• macOS — supported
• Linux — supported
• Windows — should work (not tested)

License

MIT