# Codex Cleanup > Audit and safely reduce local Codex Desktop and CLI disk or memory usage. Explicit invocation only. Use for assessing or cleaning task history, archived sessions, logs_2.sqlite, cached standalone releases, shell snapshots, or leftover runtime processes. Do not use for deleting cloud ChatGPT chats, general operating-system cleanup, or uninstalling and resetting Codex. - Skill: `sjunepark/codex-cleanup` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 9 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sjunepark/codex-cleanup` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sjunepark/codex-cleanup/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: DevOps & Infra - Author: sjunepark (https://skillmd.com/u/sjunepark) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sjunepark/codex-cleanup --- # Codex Cleanup Reclaim measured local storage or memory without corrupting task history, SQLite state, an installed release, or an active run. Audit first, propose exact targets, and mutate only the scope the user approved. ## Preserve these boundaries - Treat audit and planning as read-only. - Treat an explicit cleanup scope in the current or applicable earlier user instructions as authority for that scope. Otherwise obtain confirmation after showing exact targets, descendants, estimated bytes, reversibility, and whether a restart is required. - Use the supported task lifecycle capability for permanent task deletion. Verify the exact installed interface through its help, schema, or primary protocol documentation before presenting or invoking it. Never invent a convenience CLI command, and never remove rollout files or task rows directly. - Quiesce every process that can access the target database before checkpointing, copying, or vacuuming it. This includes every Desktop, CLI, IDE extension, app-server, and helper session that shares the resolved Codex home, even when its tasks appear idle. A session may remain open only when its effective Codex home is proven to be different; otherwise treat it as a possible writer. - Never terminate the current execution process or one of its ancestors. If the current run lives inside the target Desktop or CLI process tree, prepare the exact next action and have the user quit or continue from a separate process. - Never blanket-delete `.tmp`, `plugins`, `worktrees`, `shell_snapshots`, state databases, credentials, or configuration. Prove ownership and staleness for each individual target first. - Preserve unrelated user changes and data. Stop when a target cannot be tied to Codex or its safe lifecycle is unknown. ## Audit 1. Resolve the effective Codex home from an explicit path, then `CODEX_HOME`, then the platform's user-home `.codex` directory. Record the resolved path. 2. Run `scripts/audit_codex_home.py` from this skill directory. It is read-only and reports top-level sizes, history age, SQLite free pages, release-cache candidates, and the relevant process tree. Use `--json` when retaining or comparing results. Add `--quick-check` only when the extra database scan is acceptable and the client has been quiesced. Ordinary page metrics come only from the main-file header. For `--quick-check`, the script refuses to proceed when it detects matching runtime processes and checks a temporary copy so it never creates or changes database sidecars in the Codex home. Its process inventory intentionally omits arguments and environment, so it cannot prove which Codex home each process uses; treat its runtime block as conservative. 3. If a compatible Codex executable provides a read-only doctor command, run it and capture rollout/database parity before mutation. Prefer the executable used by the active Desktop or CLI; do not assume the shell's `codex` is the same build. 4. Read [references/storage-contract.md](references/storage-contract.md) when interpreting candidates or performing any cleanup. Re-check installed help or current primary source if its version notes do not match the installed build. 5. Rank opportunities by measured recoverable bytes and likely responsiveness benefit. Separate disk storage, database internal free pages, and resident memory; do not add them into one misleading total. Report the audit before acting. Include the current size, candidate size, proposed action, risk/restart requirement, and default recommendation for every material category. ## Build an approved cleanup plan Select only actions supported by the evidence: - **Task history:** Select exact root task IDs by age, archive state, project, or user-supplied criteria. Expand each root to its descendant/subagent tasks and show that set. Count a task as completed only when the lifecycle API reports it inactive or completion is otherwise proven; do not trust a stale spawn-edge flag alone. Exclude the current task and every active writer. - **Runtime memory:** Identify the owning Desktop or CLI tree, active work, the current process ancestry, and stale residual helpers. Prefer a graceful app or CLI exit and restart. Propose exact PIDs only for helpers that remain after their owner exits. - **Standalone releases:** Resolve the `current` target. Keep it and, by default, the newest distinct rollback release. Consider only other complete release directories while installers and updaters are stopped. - **Log database:** Recommend compaction when measured free pages would reclaim material filesystem space; skip it when the likely saving is negligible. SQLite `VACUUM` preserves retained logical rows and rebuilds the file to return free pages to the filesystem. It is not a substitute for task deletion or log retention. Require enough working space for both the safety copy and SQLite's temporary rewrite. Read and follow [workflows/compact-log-database.md](workflows/compact-log-database.md) before approving, handing off, or performing compaction. - **Other caches:** Act only when the installed version documents ownership and cleanup semantics or the user approves exact disposable files after review. Do not describe archiving as space reclamation: it normally moves task history and updates its index without removing the rollout content. ## Apply in a safe order Run only approved action classes and their required prerequisites in the order below. A history-only cleanup does not require database compaction, cache deletion, or an otherwise unnecessary shutdown. 1. Permanently delete approved tasks through a discovered and verified native task-delete capability, such as app-server `thread/delete`. Record the executable or connected capability, version, method name, and discovery evidence. Include the approved completed descendants. Let the lifecycle operation update rollout files, indexes, logs, queues, memories, goals, dynamic tools, and spawn edges through its consistency and retry ordering. If the API refuses an externally referenced fork, report it and ask whether to expand the set; do not bypass the check. If no verified callable delete interface is available, stop at a plan that names the missing capability; do not translate the method into an assumed `codex delete` command or fall back to filesystem/SQLite deletion. 2. Re-run the parity diagnostic and history inventory. Stop on missing, duplicate, mismatched, or stale state instead of continuing into lower-value cleanup. 3. Quiesce database access. Ask the user to finish or stop active work and exit every Desktop, CLI, IDE extension, app-server, and helper session sharing the resolved Codex home. Verify that all relevant PIDs exited; do not infer safety from sessions appearing idle. Send a graceful termination only to exact approved residual PIDs; escalate to forced termination only with separate explicit authority. 4. Remove approved obsolete release directories while quiesced. Re-resolve the `current` target immediately before deletion and abort if it changed or any candidate equals it. 5. For approved database compaction, execute sections 1–5 of the compaction workflow: offline gates, recovery copy, logical baseline, `PRAGMA integrity_check`, WAL checkpoint, `VACUUM`, and pre-reopen checks. Abort on any failed or ambiguous gate; do not reduce the workflow to a bare `VACUUM` command. 6. Restart in stages. After compaction, follow section 6 of its workflow; otherwise restart the intended client normally. Verify retained tasks, then re-run the audit with the same options and compare measured bytes and processes with the baseline. When the current run cannot survive quiescence, stop after producing a complete offline handoff: exact resolved paths, approved targets, excluded current ancestry, prerequisite exit checks, commands or API operations, validation, and recovery instructions. Do not schedule an unmonitored destructive job. ## Finish For an audit-only request, finish with the findings and actionable proposal. For cleanup, finish when approved actions have completed or a precise offline handoff exists. Report the applicable results: - bytes reclaimed by category and remaining disk headroom; - tasks deleted, including descendant count, and tasks deliberately retained; - database integrity and rollout/database parity results; - release directories retained and removed; - runtime processes stopped or still active; - any skipped target, blocker, or recovery artifact. Distinguish measured results from estimates and recommendations.