Trim Branches

A CLI tool to trim merged branches from your git origin remote. Keep your repository clean by automatically identifying and deleting branches that have been merged into your main branch.

Features

• 🔍 Smart Detection - Automatically finds branches merged into main/master
• 🛡️ Safe Defaults - Preserves important branches like develop by default
• 🔥 Dry Run Mode - Preview what will be deleted before making changes
• 🎨 Beautiful Output - Colored output with branch information and commit details
• ⚡ Fast - Built on Node.js for cross-platform compatibility
• 🤖 Interactive - Confirmation prompts to prevent accidents

Installation

Global Installation (Recommended)

npm install -g trim-branches

Local Installation

npm install trim-branches
npx trim-branches --help

Usage

Basic Usage

# Preview what would be deleted (recommended first step)
trim-branches --dry-run

# Delete merged branches with confirmation
trim-branches

# Delete without confirmation prompts
trim-branches --force

Advanced Usage

# Use a different main branch
trim-branches --main master

# Also remove develop branch if merged
trim-branches --no-keep-develop

# Combine options
trim-branches --main master --force --no-keep-develop

Options

| Option | Alias | Description | Default | |--------|-------|-------------|---------| | --main <branch> | -m | Set the main branch name | main | | --dry-run | -d | Show what would be deleted without deleting | false | | --force | -f | Skip confirmation prompts | false | | --no-keep-develop | | Also remove develop branch if merged | Keep develop | | --help | -h | Show help message | | | --version | -V | Show version number | |

Examples

1. Safe Preview

trim-branches --dry-run

Output:

🚀 Starting merged branch cleanup...
📡 Fetching latest changes from origin...
🔍 Finding merged branches...
📋 Found the following merged branches:
  • feature/user-auth
    Last commit: a1b2c3d Add login functionality
    Author: John Doe (2 days ago)

  • bugfix/header-styling  
    Last commit: d4e5f6g Fix header alignment
    Author: Jane Smith (1 week ago)

🔍 DRY RUN: The above branches would be deleted from origin
💡 Run without --dry-run to actually delete them

2. Interactive Deletion

trim-branches

🚀 Starting merged branch cleanup...
📡 Fetching latest changes from origin...
🔍 Finding merged branches...
📋 Found the following merged branches:
  • feature/user-auth
  • bugfix/header-styling

⚠️  This will permanently delete the above branches from origin!
? Are you sure you want to continue? (y/N) y

🗑️  Deleting merged branches from origin...
✅ Deleted origin/feature/user-auth
✅ Deleted origin/bugfix/header-styling
🧹 Cleaning up local tracking branches...

🎉 Cleanup complete!
✅ Deleted: 2 branches
📊 Remaining remote branches: 3
💡 Tip: Run 'git branch -vv' to see local branches tracking deleted remotes

Safety Features

Protected Branches

By default, these branches are never deleted:

• Your main branch (specified with --main)
• develop (unless --no-keep-develop is used)
• HEAD and other git references

Confirmation Required

Unless you use --force, you'll always be asked to confirm before deleting branches.

Detailed Information

Before deletion, you'll see:

• Branch name
• Last commit hash and message
• Author name
• Relative date of last commit

Requirements

• Node.js 14.0.0 or higher
• Git repository with origin remote
• Git command line tools installed

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/new-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -am 'Add new feature'
4. Push to the branch: git push origin feature/new-feature
5. Submit a pull request

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Changelog

1.0.0

• Initial release
• Basic branch pruning functionality
• Dry run mode
• Interactive confirmations
• Colored output
• Cross-platform support