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gx sweep scans your repo for cleanup opportunities and offers to delete merged branches, likely squash-merged branches, and stale remote tracking refs in one pass.

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Usage

gx sweep [flags]

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Flags

FlagShortDescription
--dry-runShow what would be cleaned without making changes
--yes-ySkip confirmation prompts

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Three Categories

gx sweep identifies three types of cleanup targets:

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1. Merged Branches (safe to delete)

Branches that are fully merged into the HEAD branch (main/master). Uses git branch --merged.

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2. Squash-Merged Branches

Branches where all commits are already present in the HEAD branch, even though they were not merged via a merge commit. This handles the common GitHub “Squash and merge” workflow. gx uses git cherry to detect these: if every commit on the branch is prefixed with - (meaning an equivalent commit exists on the target), the branch is considered squash-merged.

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3. Stale Remote Tracking Refs

Remote tracking references (origin/...) that point to branches that no longer exist on the remote. Detected via git remote prune origin --dry-run.

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Example

$ gx sweep

Scanning for cleanup opportunities...

Merged branches (safe to delete):
  feature/old-login
  fix/typo

Likely squash-merged branches:
  feature/dashboard

Stale remote tracking refs:
  origin/feature/deleted-branch

Summary: 2 merged, 1 likely squash-merged, 1 stale refs

Delete merged branches? [y/N] y
OK Deleted feature/old-login
OK Deleted fix/typo

Delete likely squash-merged branches? [y/N] y
OK Deleted feature/dashboard

Prune stale remote tracking refs? [y/N] y
OK Pruned 1 stale remote tracking refs

OK Cleanup complete.

$ gx sweep --dry-run

Scanning for cleanup opportunities...

Merged branches (safe to delete):
  feature/old-login

Summary: 1 merged, 0 likely squash-merged, 0 stale refs

DRY RUN would delete 1 branches, 0 stale refs
Squash-merged branches are detected heuristically. While the git cherry method is reliable in most cases, review the list before confirming deletion. Merged branches use the safe -d flag, while squash-merged branches use -D (force delete) since git does not recognize them as merged.
  • The current branch and HEAD branch are never included in cleanup candidates
  • After deletion, gx also cleans stale entries from the stack config (.git/gx/stack.json)
  • If nothing needs cleanup, gx prints OK Nothing to clean up. Repository is tidy!
  • Each category is confirmed separately unless --yes is used