| name | prune-projects |
| description | Find stale .claude/projects/ folders whose source directories no longer exist on the filesystem, then clean them up (merge renamed, delete dead). |
| user-invocable | true |
Prune Projects
Scan ~/.claude/projects/ for project folders that point to directories no longer on the filesystem. Present findings and clean up based on user instructions.
Path Encoding
Claude Code encodes project paths by replacing /, ., and _ with -. This means -- in a folder name could decode to /., /_, or /-.
Decoding strategy: for each -- segment, try all three prefixes (_, ., -) against the filesystem. A single encoded name may have multiple -- segments requiring independent resolution.
Execution
Step 1: Scan
For each directory in ~/.claude/projects/:
- Skip
.DS_Store and non-directories.
- Decode the folder name back to a filesystem path:
- Replace
-- with a placeholder (e.g., \x00)
- Replace
- with /
- For each placeholder, try restoring as
/_, /., and /- (check filesystem existence at each level)
- If the decoded path exists on the filesystem, skip it.
- If no valid decoding exists, mark it as stale.
Step 2: Categorize
Group stale folders into:
- Worktrees: folders containing
.claude-worktrees or .claude/worktrees
- Workspace subpaths: folders whose encoded name is a subpath of another project folder that still exists
- Temp: folders under
/private/tmp/ or /var/folders/
- Regular: everything else.
Step 3: Present
Show findings in a table, then ask which to delete and which were renamed/moved.
Step 4: Act on user instructions
For deletes: Use rm.
For merges (renamed/moved projects):
- Identify the target project folder (create if needed).
- Move session files (
*.jsonl) and session dirs (UUID-named) to the target.
- Move
memory/ contents if present (don't overwrite existing).
- Remove the now-empty source folder.
For worktrees: merge session files into the parent project folder, then delete.
Rules
- Always present findings first. Do NOT delete or merge without user confirmation.
- After cleanup, list remaining project folders so user can verify.
