Trail of Bits

Git Cleanup — Development skill for Claude Code

Development community Advanced

Trail of Bits security skill for git cleanup.

How to install Git Cleanup

Installs to ~/.claude/skills/git-cleanup/

Terminal

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/trailofbits/skills /tmp/skills \
  && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills \
  && cp -r /tmp/skills/plugins/git-cleanup ~/.claude/skills/git-cleanup

Clones the whole repository, because a skill folder can carry scripts and resources beside its SKILL.md.

What Git Cleanup does

A Claude Code skill for safely cleaning up accumulated git worktrees and local branches.

Alternatives in Development

Clean Worktree (Interactive) — Interactive cleanup of worktrees: lists merged/stale branches and asks confirmation before deleting 25.5k ★
System Cache Cleanup — Clean temporary files and caches to free disk space: $ARGUMENTS 23.4k ★
Cleanup Builds — Cleanup Dev Builds 20k ★

Repository README

This is the README for trailofbits/skills, shared by 13 entries in this directory. It describes the repository, not this entry specifically.

git-cleanup

A Claude Code skill for safely cleaning up accumulated git worktrees and local branches.

What It Does

Analyzes your local git repository and categorizes branches/worktrees into:

Safe to delete: Branches fully merged into the default branch
Needs review: Branches with deleted remotes ([gone]) that may have local-only work
Theme-related: Groups of branches working on similar functionality
Keep: Active work with unpushed commits or untracked local branches

The skill uses a gated workflow requiring explicit user confirmation before any deletions.

When to Use

Invoke with `/git-cleanup` when you have accumulated many local branches and worktrees that need cleanup.

**Important**: This skill only runs when explicitly invoked. It will never suggest cleanup proactively or run automatically.

Safety Features

Two confirmation gates (analysis review, then deletion confirmation)
Uses safe delete (git branch -d) for merged branches; force delete (git branch -D) only for squash-merged branches where git cannot detect the merge
Blocks removal of worktrees with uncommitted changes
Never touches protected branches (main, master, develop, release/*)
Flags [gone] branches for review instead of auto-deleting

Installation

claude plugins:add trailofbits/skills/git-cleanup

Example

User: /git-cleanup

Claude: [Analyzes branches and worktrees]
        [Presents categorized tables]
        "I found 5 branches safe to delete, 2 needing review.
         Which would you like to clean up?"

User: "Delete the merged branches"

Claude: "I will delete these branches:
         - feature/auth
         - bugfix/login
         Confirm? (yes/no)"

User: "yes"

Claude: [Executes and reports results]