devprune

A terminal tool that reclaims disk space by finding and removing developer build artifacts, caches, dependencies, and other cruft.

Scans your filesystem for node_modules, target/, .venv, __pycache__, build/, and 50+ other artifact types across many languages and frameworks. Operates as an interactive TUI or headless CLI.

Note

This project is heavily coded with AI and is currently in beta.

Install

Quick install (Linux/macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kavehtehrani/devprune/main/install.sh | sh

Installs to ~/.local/bin. Make sure it's in your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Pre-built binaries

Download from GitHub Releases for:

Platform	Target
Linux x86_64	x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Linux ARM64	aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
macOS Intel	x86_64-apple-darwin
macOS Apple Silicon	aarch64-apple-darwin
Windows x86_64	x86_64-pc-windows-msvc (untested)

From source

Requires Rust 1.85+:

cargo install --path crates/devprune

Usage

devprune [OPTIONS] [PATHS...]

By default, scans the current directory and opens the interactive TUI.

Examples

# Scan current directory (TUI)
devprune

# Scan specific directories
devprune ~/projects ~/work

# Scan home directory
devprune --home

# Headless mode, JSON output
devprune --no-tui --json ~/projects

# Only show summary stats
devprune --no-tui --stats-only ~/projects

# Dry run (report only, don't delete)
devprune --dry-run ~/projects

# Auto-delete all Safe artifacts
devprune --auto --yes ~/projects

# Only dependencies larger than 100MB
devprune --category dependencies --min-size 100MB

# Only Safe artifacts, skip risky ones
devprune --safety safe

Options

Path selection

Flag	Description
<PATHS>	Directories to scan (default: .)
--home	Scan the home directory
--all	Scan from filesystem root

Mode

Flag	Description
--tui	Force TUI mode
--no-tui	Headless mode (no interactive UI)
--auto	Auto-select all Safe artifacts for deletion
--yes	Confirm automatic deletion (required with --auto)
--dry-run	Report what would be deleted without deleting

Output

Flag	Description
--json	Output as JSON
--stats-only	Print summary counts and totals only

Filtering

Flag	Description
--category CAT	Filter by category (repeatable)
--min-size SIZE	Minimum artifact size (e.g. 10MB, 1GiB)
--safety LEVEL	Maximum safety level: safe, cautious, or risky
--exclude GLOB	Glob patterns to exclude (repeatable)

Performance

Flag	Description
--threads N	Number of worker threads
--max-depth N	Maximum directory depth
--cross-device	Scan across filesystem boundaries

Trash management

Deleted items go to a devprune-managed trash, allowing restoration:

devprune trash list                    # List trashed items
devprune trash restore <ID>            # Restore by UUID
devprune trash purge                   # Permanently delete all
devprune trash purge --older-than 30d  # Purge items older than 30 days

TUI

The interactive TUI shows a tree of detected artifacts grouped by category and rule, with a details panel on the right.

Key bindings

Key	Action
j/k or arrows	Navigate
Space/Enter	Toggle selection
a/A	Select all / deselect all
d	Delete selected
/	Search / filter
s	Cycle sort order
f	Filter by safety level
c	Browse for scan directory
t	Open trash browser
R	Rescan
?	Help
q	Quit

What it detects

devprune ships with 50+ rules covering artifacts from many languages and tools. Each rule has a safety level:

• Safe - definitely safe to delete, recreated by build/install commands
• Cautious - usually safe but may need verification
• Risky - may contain custom configs not easily recovered

Categories

Category	Examples	Rules
Dependencies	node_modules, vendor, .bundle, Pods	9
Build output	target/, build/, dist/, _build/	14
Caches	__pycache__, .next, .gradle, .turbo	14
Virtual environments	.venv, venv, .tox, .nox	6
IDE artifacts	.idea, .vscode, .vs, *.swp	5
Coverage	coverage/, htmlcov/, .nyc_output	4
Logs	npm-debug.log*, yarn-error.log*	3
Compiled/generated	.eggs, *.egg-info, .terraform	5
Misc	.expo, .stack-work, zig-cache	9

Many rules use context markers (e.g. requiring Cargo.toml next to a target/ dir) to avoid false positives on generic directory names like build or dist.