chaff

Developer machines accumulate gigabytes of dead weight that slow down builds and trigger disk space errors. This skill identifies and safely reclaims memory and disk space by targeting stray build daemons, stale caches, and abandoned worktrees without risking active work.

What it does

• Resource auditing identifies memory pressure and disk usage across local development environments.
• Tiered reclamation categorizes targets into dead assets (Tier 1), idle caches (Tier 2), and active work (Tier 3) to prevent accidental data loss.
• Build daemon management locates and terminates orphaned processes from Gradle, NX, or Node.js.
• Safe worktree pruning detects uncommitted changes in abandoned git worktrees before suggesting removal.
• Undoable operations moves files to a managed trash instead of immediate deletion, allowing for restoration.

How it works

1. Assessment via chaff_status to determine current system pressure and identify specific bottlenecks.
2. Planning using chaff_plan to generate a list of targets and their associated tiers/sizes for user review.
3. Safety check with chaff_worktrees to ensure no uncommitted code is lost in stale directories.
4. Execution of chaff_reap for dead assets or chaff_clean for idle caches after explicit user confirmation.
5. Verification by re-running status checks to report total reclaimed space and memory.

Frameworks & tools

Works with Node.js, Gradle, NX, git worktrees, and standard build daemons. Integrates via MCP, Claude Code plugins, or the @gulsahsarsilmaz/chaff CLI.

Why this beats prompting it yourself

Writing manual rm -rf commands or shell scripts risks deleting uncommitted work or active build artifacts. This skill uses a tiered safety system and built-in trash/restore functionality that basic file system prompts cannot replicate.

Use cases

• Fix ENOSPC "no space left on device" errors during large npm installs.
• Clean up orphaned tsserver or gradle processes causing system lag.
• Identify and remove forgotten git worktrees that duplicate heavy project caches.
• Recover disk space by clearing stale build outputs from inactive projects.

Known limitations

Tier 3 (live work) removal is disabled over MCP and requires manual CLI execution. Requires the chaff MCP server or CLI package to be available in the environment.