clean-cache

Batch Project Cache Cleanup (Clean Cache)

Description

When developing multiple Flutter/Android/iOS projects, build artifacts and dependency caches grow rapidly. This Skill batch-scans the workspace, performs tiered cleanup by safety level, and frees disk space while preserving global dependency caches to avoid re-downloading on the next build.

Rules

Rule 0 — Safety Tiers (Core Principle)

Cleanup is divided into three tiers. Only L1 is executed by default; L2/L3 require explicit user confirmation:

Tier	What Gets Deleted	Rebuild Cost	Estimated Space Freed
L1 Safe Cleanup	Build artifacts (build/, DerivedData, .dart_tool/, bazel-*) + stale dev tool caches (Homebrew old version packages, Bazel global cache)	Recompile only, no network cost	Large
L2 Dependency Cleanup	Project-level dependencies (Pods/, node_modules/, .gradle/caches/)	Requires pod install / npm install / gradle sync, but recovers from global cache, relatively fast	Medium
L3 Deep Cleanup	Global caches (~/.gradle/caches/, CocoaPods repo index, Pub global cache)	All projects need to re-download on first build, very slow	Small

Key distinction: L2 deletes project-internal Pods/, node_modules/, but global caches remain (~/.cocoapods/repos/, npm cache, ~/.gradle/caches/), so re-installing will mostly recover packages from local cache without re-downloading.

Rule 1 — Step 1: Scan Workspace

Accept the user-specified workspace root directory (default ~/Desktop or the parent of the current directory) and scan all cleanable cache directories:

# Scan script — find all cache directories and their sizes
WORKSPACE="${1:-.}"

echo "=== L1 Build Artifacts (safe to delete, just recompile) ==="
# Flutter build artifacts
find "$WORKSPACE" -name ".dart_tool" -type d -maxdepth 6 2>/dev/null | while read d; do du -sh "$d"; done
# Android build artifacts
find "$WORKSPACE" -path "*/app/build" -type d -maxdepth 6 2>/dev/null | while read d; do du -sh "$d"; done
find "$WORKSPACE" -name "build" -path "*android*" -type d -maxdepth 6 2>/dev/null | while read d; do du -sh "$d"; done
# iOS DerivedData (global)
du -sh ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/ 2>/dev/null
# Bazel artifacts
find "$WORKSPACE" -name "bazel-*" -type l -maxdepth 4 2>/dev/null | while read d; do echo "$d (symlink)"; done
# Homebrew old version packages cache
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew/ 2>/dev/null
# Bazel global cache
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/bazel/ 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/bazelisk/ 2>/dev/null

echo ""
echo "=== L2 Project-Level Dependencies (need install after deletion, but recover from global cache) ==="
# iOS Pods
find "$WORKSPACE" -name "Pods" -type d -maxdepth 5 2>/dev/null | while read d; do du -sh "$d"; done
# Node modules
find "$WORKSPACE" -name "node_modules" -type d -maxdepth 5 -prune 2>/dev/null | while read d; do du -sh "$d"; done
# Android .gradle (project-level)
find "$WORKSPACE" -name ".gradle" -type d -maxdepth 4 2>/dev/null | while read d; do du -sh "$d"; done
# Flutter .flutter-plugins
find "$WORKSPACE" -name ".flutter-plugins" -type f -maxdepth 5 2>/dev/null
find "$WORKSPACE" -name ".flutter-plugins-dependencies" -type f -maxdepth 5 2>/dev/null

echo ""
echo "=== L3 Global Caches (all projects must re-download after deletion, use caution) ==="
du -sh ~/.gradle/caches/ 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/.cocoapods/repos/ 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/.pub-cache/ 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/CocoaPods/ 2>/dev/null
npm cache ls 2>/dev/null | wc -l | xargs -I{} echo "npm cache: {} entries"