macOS Cleaner

Diagnose the actual source of disk pressure, reclaim only approved space, and prove that the cleanup did not damage user data or co-resident services.

Entry router

Choose the narrowest path that can answer the request:

User-provided scope exclusions override every generic scan suggestion. Do not inspect personal directories, credentials, databases, application state, or unrelated services when the user excludes them.

Safety and authorization contract

1. Separate observation from mutation. Complete a read-only diagnosis first. Do not delete, stop a service, edit settings, install or upgrade tools, or run a cleanup preview that may mutate state during that phase.
2. Confirm the exact target. On a remote Mac, record the current host identity before any other work. Never infer the machine from an IP, old PID, directory name, or prior report.
3. Plan before asking. Before any state change, list every command, what it changes, expected physical space reclaimed, impact, recoverability, and postconditions. Then stop if the user requested a plan-only phase.
4. Require explicit approval. If the user supplies an exact confirmation phrase, require that phrase. Otherwise ask for unmistakable approval of the listed commands and targets. Approval for one plan does not authorize a fallback or a wider cleanup.
5. Use precise supported controls. Prefer an application's supported cache-management command or an exact object ID. If no supported control exists, an exact application-owned cache directory may be removed only after verifying its owner, confirming the application is stopped or the directory is otherwise inactive, explaining rebuild/redownload impact, and receiving approval. Never target a broad cache root or active application state.
6. Never use Docker prune-family commands. This includes image, container, volume, system, builder, and buildx prune. Category-wide deletion cannot express per-object user intent.
7. Avoid broad destructive shell forms. Do not recommend or execute broad rm -rf or glob deletion. For exact approved ordinary files, prefer Finder Trash. The bundled legacy helper permanently deletes and has only the limited guards documented below; never treat it as equivalent to Trash.
8. Preserve valuable state. Never target user documents, credentials, SSH material, active databases, application configuration, or running-service state merely to increase the reported savings. Read references/safety_rules.md before any file deletion.
9. Execution follows the user's authorization. If the user asks only for analysis or wants to run commands personally, hand off the commands. If the user asks the agent to fix the machine and explicitly confirms the scoped plan, execute the exact approved commands and verify them. Unattended recurring deletion logic needs separate approval before it is written or enabled.
10. Fail fast. A non-zero command, a mismatched postcondition, an unexpected target, or a changed dependency stops the cleanup. Report the partial state; do not improvise a fallback.

Phase contract

Use this state machine for every cleanup:

1. Observe — read-only. Capture identity, disk baseline, the suspected subsystem's status and configuration, physical allocation, and critical-service health. 1b. Authorize stateful inspection when unavoidable. If deeper evidence requires creating a temporary container, pulling an image, mounting a volume, or writing a snapshot, first finish the metadata-only observation, list the exact inspection commands and their side effects, and obtain separate approval. Inspection approval is not cleanup approval.
2. Plan — no mutation. Explain findings, commands, impact, recovery, expected release, and success criteria. Stop at the confirmation gate.
3. Execute — approved scope only. Re-read live state immediately before acting, then run each approved command separately and check its exit status and postcondition.
4. Verify — independent readback. Measure disk space and subsystem state again, recheck protected services, and observe long enough to detect immediate refill.

Do not compress phases 2 and 3 into one message. A plan printed beside a cleanup command is not a confirmation gate.

Phase 1: read-only diagnosis

Establish the baseline

At minimum, capture:

/bin/date "+%F %T %Z %z"
/usr/sbin/scutil --get ComputerName
/usr/sbin/scutil --get LocalHostName
/usr/bin/sw_vers
/bin/df -k /System/Volumes/Data
/bin/df -h /System/Volumes/Data

Use df -k for calculations and df -h for the human-readable report. Treat an extension, label, or old report as a hint until the live command confirms it.

Establish the success target before an unknown-source scan. Copy a user-supplied free-space or capacity target exactly. If the user supplied none, report the current values and ask for a target in GiB, capacity percentage, or both; do not invent one. A named-suspect diagnosis may continue without a cleanup target, but the ordered unknown-source scan cannot claim a stop condition until the target is explicit.

Keep this first phase read-only. Do not run scripts/cleanup_report.py yet: it creates a local state directory and snapshot file. Preserve the command output in the report instead. On a remote target, always run the direct df commands on that host; the local helper must not measure the controller Mac by mistake.

Follow the named suspect before broad scans

• Query the subsystem's own status and settings.
• Measure physical allocation with a bounded du on the exact data path only when permissions and user scope allow it.
• Distinguish logical content size, sparse-file apparent size, purgeable space, and physically allocated bytes.
• For a suspected growing log, record exact file sizes at two or more timestamps. One large file or one recent mtime does not prove sustained growth.
• Capture the current process, listeners, launch mechanism, and supported health probe of any co-resident service the user marks as critical. Re-resolve PIDs at each checkpoint.

If the known suspect alone can meet the user's free-space target, do not scan unrelated personal or development directories “just in case.”

General analysis when the source is unknown

Run the smallest ordered sequence that can identify enough physical space to meet the target. Stop only when candidates with supported exact actions and defensible expected physical release can meet it. Raw allocation totals, logical cache sizes, shared Docker layers, Trash moves, and unverified “potential savings” do not satisfy the stop condition.

An <approved-path> is an exact path the user named or explicitly accepted after its scope was described. If none exists, skip large-file and duplicate-content scanning, state that this evidence branch was not authorized, and continue with non-content-bearing evidence. Do not install or upgrade Mole during a read-only phase unless the user separately authorizes that change.

Mole's analyzer scans a fixed set that includes the home directory, application data, system libraries, applications, and volumes. Navigation inside the results does not make the underlying scan path-scoped. If that broad read scope is not approved, do not run Mole; stop with the bounded evidence already collected or ask for the missing scan authorization in the plan.

For an explicitly approved duplicate-file investigation, read the “Optional duplicate files” section in references/cleanup_targets.md. It is read-only and never uses an automatic-delete option.

Docker and OrbStack

Read references/docker_analysis.md before reporting Docker savings. List every image, container, and volume individually; inspect references and database-like contents; use actual sparse-file allocation rather than apparent size. A resource reported as dangling is not proof that its data is worthless. Build-cache measurement is supported, but build-cache deletion is deliberately out of scope because the available Docker controls are prune-family operations.

Phase 2: report and stop at the gate

Report observed values rather than inferred properties. Use references/report_templates.md for the long-form layout and include these fields for every proposed action:

Classify findings by consequence, not by how tempting the number is:

• Rebuildable cache: deletion loses only a local copy, but state the redownload or rebuild cost.
• User decision required: value depends on the user's workflow or ownership knowledge.
• Preserve: user data, credentials, database state, active configuration, or anything whose role is uncertain.

Do not call a cache “absolutely safe” merely because software can regenerate it. Regeneration time, bandwidth, authentication, and offline availability are real costs.

Phase 3: execute the confirmed plan

Immediately before the first state-changing command:

1. Reconfirm the target identity and current disk state.
2. Re-query the objects or subsystem status; cleanup plans expire when live state changes.
3. Recheck protected-service health.
4. Compare the approved commands with the commands about to run. Any difference requires new approval.

If the approved plan includes creation of a local before/after report artifact, capture the before snapshot now, after approval and before the first cleanup command:

uv run scripts/cleanup_report.py --snapshot before

This writes under ~/.macos-cleaner, so list it in the plan. It is optional and local-target only; direct df -k/-h readings remain the source of truth. Never run it on the controller Mac as a substitute for measuring a remote target.

Run one state-changing command at a time. Read the result before sending the next command. After each command, run the postcondition that can distinguish success from partial success.

For an exact ordinary file that is not user data, application state, a database, or a protected path, prefer a recoverable Finder Trash move after the user confirms the exact path:

/usr/bin/osascript \
  -e 'on run argv' \
  -e 'tell application "Finder" to delete (POSIX file (item 1 of argv))' \
  -e 'end run' -- "<exact-path>"

Moving to Trash usually releases no physical space until Trash is emptied; state that in the plan. scripts/safe_delete.py is a legacy permanent-deletion helper with an interactive prompt and a limited system/credential denylist. It does not move to Trash, check every user-data root, detect open files, or independently prove reclaimed bytes. Use it only when the exact non-user-data target and irreversible deletion were explicitly approved:

uv run scripts/safe_delete.py <exact-path> [<exact-path> ...]

Do not use this helper for user documents, application-managed caches such as Apple Content Caching, databases, credentials, or any target whose role is uncertain.

Two narrow Finder-Trash branches remain available without weakening those exclusions:

• For an exact inactive application cache with no verified supported management control, follow the named-cache discovery/in-use protocol in references/cleanup_targets.md, explain the rebuild cost, and obtain explicit approval for that exact cache path.
• For duplicate files inside an exact approved user-data root, first show each duplicate set's size/hash and every path. The user must name the copy to keep and each copy to remove. Move only those confirmed files to Finder Trash; never use the permanent helper, an automatic duplicate-selection flag, all, a glob, or a directory-level target. Verify the source paths moved to Trash, and state that physical space is not released until Trash is separately reviewed and emptied.

Phase 4: verify and observe

Verification must cover all clauses of the approved plan:

• Re-read df -k and df -h; calculate reclaimed space from before/after readings rather than from the deletion tool's claim.
• Re-query the cleaned subsystem's activation, configuration, and physical usage.
• Re-resolve each protected service's PID, listeners, launch mechanism, and health probe. A healthy disk does not prove the service survived.
• Observe at bounded intervals when APFS accounting can lag or the source may refill. Record each timestamp and value.
• If the free-space target is missed, stop all deletion. Begin a second read-only analysis and rank remaining sources by measured physical allocation.

Never report “fixed” when only the command exit code is known. A successful cleanup requires both the intended state and the protected invariants.

For a local target whose before snapshot was captured by the helper, generate the comparison with:

uv run scripts/cleanup_report.py --snapshot after --compare

Resources

Load only the branch relevant to the current task:

• references/apple_content_caching.md — Apple Content Caching diagnosis, unit interpretation, supported remote controls, confirmation plan, and post-cleanup verification.
• references/cleanup_targets.md — cache, log, application, developer, large-file, and Time Machine target semantics.
• references/docker_analysis.md — per-object Docker and OrbStack analysis, database-volume safeguards, and refill root-cause diagnosis.
• references/mole_integration.md — TTY workflow for interactive Mole analysis and preview.
• references/report_templates.md — long-form general and Docker report templates.
• references/safety_rules.md — blocked paths, confirmation, recovery, and file-deletion safety checks.
• scripts/analyze_caches.py — bounded cache inventory.
• scripts/find_app_remnants.py — application-remnant candidates; reads its fixed Applications and ~/Library roots, so require that scope first.
• scripts/analyze_large_files.py — large-file discovery inside an approved path.
• scripts/analyze_dev_env.py — Docker/package-manager inventory plus fixed common-project-root .git sizing; require that full read scope first.
• scripts/safe_delete.py — legacy guarded permanent deletion for exact approved non-user-data targets; it is not a Trash or recovery tool.
• scripts/cleanup_report.py — local-target before/after reporting for /System/Volumes/Data by default, with an explicit --volume override.

Do not use this skill when

• The target is Windows or Linux.
• The requested action requires disabling SIP or bypassing macOS protections.
• The user asks for silent or automatic deletion without an auditable scope and confirmation gate.
• The task is only to tune application behavior and has no disk-space diagnosis or recovery goal.