macOS Cleanup

An interactive, discovery-based macOS cleanup skill. Works on any Mac dev machine — detects installed tools, package managers, browsers, and dev directories rather than assuming a fixed setup.

Safety Rules

These rules are non-negotiable. Follow them at all times:

1. Never delete without approval. Always show what will be deleted, its size, and get explicit user confirmation before executing any destructive command.
2. Never rm -rf app bundles. Use Finder via osascript to move apps to Trash: osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to delete POSIX file "/Applications/App.app"'
3. Never clear browser profile data (cookies, history, passwords in ~/Library/Application Support/). OS-level browser caches in ~/Library/Caches/ are safe to remove like any app cache.
4. Honor protected paths. Ask the user for any paths that should be skipped, and never touch them.
5. Never touch .git directories. Only clean merged branches (via git branch -d), never remove .git itself.
6. Never touch system directories. /System, /Library (root level), /usr, /bin, /sbin are off-limits.
7. Never use sudo unless the user explicitly asks for elevated privileges and understands why.
8. Keep a running tally. Track and display cumulative space freed after each action.
9. Default stale threshold: 90 days. Dev artifacts not modified in 90+ days are flagged as stale. The user can override this.
10. Confirm before bulk operations. Never run commands like rm -rf ~/Downloads/* without showing item count and total size.

Workflow

1. Discover & Configure

Before scanning, gather context about the system:

• Run uname -m to detect architecture (Apple Silicon vs Intel — determines Homebrew prefix)
• Detect the Homebrew prefix: /opt/homebrew (Apple Silicon) or /usr/local (Intel)
• Check which package managers are installed: which brew npm pnpm yarn bun uv pip3 cargo go pyenv
• Scan /Applications/ for installed browsers
• Identify dev directories — check common locations: ~/developer, ~/Developer, ~/dev, ~/projects, ~/Projects, ~/src, ~/code, ~/workspace, ~/repos
• Ask the user:
  • Are there additional dev directories to scan?
  • Should the stale threshold be something other than 90 days?

Note: The scan script's tool detection (shutil.which()) is authoritative — it may find tools that the shell's which misses due to PATH differences.

2. Scan

Run the scan script with the discovered configuration:

uv run .agents/skills/mac-cleanup/scripts/scan.py \
  --dev-dirs <discovered_dirs> \
  --stale-days <threshold> \
  --skip <protected_paths>

If uv is not available, fall back to python3.

The script runs all checks in parallel and outputs a JSON report to stdout. Read the full JSON output to understand what's on the system.

If the scan script is unavailable or fails, fall back to manual commands:

• df -h / — overall disk usage
• du -sh ~/Library/Caches ~/Library/Logs ~/.cache ~/.npm ~/.Trash ~/Downloads — quick size survey
• Check package manager caches individually (see references/cleanup-catalog.md)

3. Present Findings

Show the user a summary table grouped by category. Include:

Sort by size (largest first). Flag risk levels:

• safe — always reclaimable, rebuilds automatically
• moderate — reclaimable but may need re-download or rebuild time
• high — potential data loss, needs careful review

4. Clean Up Interactively

Before starting, ask the user if there are paths that should be protected/skipped during cleanup.

Walk through categories from safest to riskiest. For each:

1. Show exactly what will be deleted and its size
2. Show the command that will run
3. Get user approval
4. Execute the command
5. Report space freed

Consult references/cleanup-catalog.md for the correct detection, cleanup command, and dry-run command for each category.

Order of operations (safest first):

1. Package manager caches (brew, npm, pnpm, yarn, bun, uv, pip, cargo, go)
2. System logs (~/Library/Logs)
3. Stale dev artifacts (node_modules, .venv, build dirs older than threshold)
4. Python bytecode caches (__pycache__, .pytest_cache, etc.)
5. Merged git branches
6. System caches (~/Library/Caches — per-subdirectory, with breakdown)
7. Docker (show docker system df, ask about aggressiveness level)
8. Homebrew — unused formulae/casks (list installed as a table with | App | Size | Description | using brew info --json for descriptions and sizes, ask which are unused)
9. Trash
10. Downloads (show largest files, never bulk-delete without review)
11. Application uninstall (if user wants — quit first, use Finder, clean support files)

App uninstall procedure:

1. Get bundle ID: mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier /Applications/AppName.app
2. Quit the app if running
3. Move to Trash via Finder: osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to delete POSIX file "/Applications/AppName.app"'
4. Clean support files in these locations (use the bundle ID):
   • ~/Library/Application Support/<AppName>
   • ~/Library/Caches/<bundleid>
   • ~/Library/Preferences/<bundleid>.plist
   • ~/Library/HTTPStorages/<bundleid>
   • ~/Library/Logs/<AppName>
   • ~/Library/Containers/<bundleid>
   • ~/Library/Group Containers/<bundleid>
   • ~/Library/Saved Application State/<bundleid>.savedState
   • ~/Library/WebKit/<bundleid>

5. Report

After all cleanup actions are complete, show:

• Before/after disk comparison: free space before vs after
• Actions taken: list every action with space freed
• Total space freed: cumulative sum
• Declined items: what was skipped and why, with suggestions for future cleanup
• Maintenance tips: suggest scheduling periodic cleanup for categories that grow back

Edge Cases

• Docker not running: Docker images/containers can use 10+ GB. Ask the user: "Docker is installed but not running. Want to start Docker Desktop to check for reclaimable space?" If yes: open -a Docker, wait for daemon readiness (poll docker info up to 30s). If no: flag prominently in report: "Docker skipped (not running) — restart and re-run to check."
• No dev directories found: Skip dev artifact scan. Ask the user if they have dev work in a non-standard location.
• Intel Mac: Use /usr/local for Homebrew prefix. All other commands work the same.
• Command failures: Log the error, skip that category, continue with the rest. Report all errors at the end.
• Nothing to clean: Report that the system is already in good shape. Show current disk usage.
• Scan script missing: Fall back to manual du/df commands as described in Step 2.
• Large ML caches: ~/.cache/huggingface or similar can be huge. Flag these specifically and warn about re-download costs.

Anti-Patterns

Do NOT do any of the following:

• rm -rf / or any variation targeting the root filesystem
• Delete .git directories — only clean merged branches
• Use sudo by default — only when the user explicitly requests it and for a specific reason
• Bulk-delete ~/Library/Application Support — this contains critical app data. Only remove entries for apps the user has confirmed they uninstalled.
• Run recursive finds on huge system directories like ~/Library/Application Support or ~/Library/Containers — these can be enormous and slow. Only check specific subdirectories.
• Delete Xcode derived data without warning — it can be very large but takes time to rebuild. Always flag the size and rebuild cost.
• Clear browser caches programmatically — this can corrupt browser state. Always direct users to browser settings.
• Force-prune Docker volumes — these may contain database data. Always show volume names and get explicit approval.