FAQ

🚀Frequently Asked Questions

Advanced

Answers to common questions about Custy's Branch Cleanup command.

Commandcusty cleanup branches

📦Category

Maintenance

🚀Quick Command

custy cleanup branches

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faqcleanupbranch

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Overview

This page answers the questions most frequently asked about Branch Cleanup and explains the safety mechanisms that Custy applies before removing Git branches.

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💡Safety Before Convenience

Branch Cleanup is intentionally conservative.

Custy prefers skipping cleanup rather than risking accidental branch deletion.

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Does Branch Cleanup delete every branch?

No.

Branch Cleanup only removes branches that satisfy every configured cleanup rule.

Branches that do not match the configured filters are ignored.

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Why weren't any branches removed?

This is one of the most common outcomes.

Possible reasons include:

• no branch prefixes were configured,
• no branches matched the configured prefixes,
• merge status excluded every branch,
• age filters excluded every branch,
• only protected branches matched the configured rules.

This indicates that no branch became eligible for cleanup.

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Why does Branch Cleanup require include_prefixes?

Branch prefixes are Custy's primary safety mechanism.

Rather than inspecting every branch in the repository, Custy only considers branches whose names begin with one of the configured prefixes.

Without configured prefixes:

include_prefixes = []

Branch Cleanup intentionally skips execution.

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Can protected branches be deleted?

Not by Custy.

The default protected branches are:

• main
• master
• develop

These branches remain protected regardless of your cleanup filters.

If you intentionally need to remove one of these branches, use Git directly.

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Can I preview the cleanup operation?

Yes.

Use Custy's global dry-run option:

custy --dry-run cleanup branches

Custy evaluates every configured cleanup rule but does not delete any branches.

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Can Branch Cleanup run as part of a workflow?

No public Run profile exposes branch cleanup. Use custy cleanup branches. Unlike Backup Cleanup, Branch Cleanup is not automatically included in larger profiles such as Release or Full.

This design ensures that branch deletion always remains an explicit user decision.

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Should I configure Branch Cleanup in config.toml?

Yes.

Although temporary overrides are available from the command line, most teams benefit from defining shared cleanup rules in config.toml.

This ensures consistent cleanup behavior across every contributor working on the project.

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Can I combine multiple cleanup filters?

Yes.

A branch may be evaluated using multiple filters simultaneously.

For example:

• branch prefix,
• merge status,
• relative age,
• absolute date.

Every configured filter must be satisfied before the branch becomes eligible for deletion.

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ℹ️Branch Cleanup Complete

You have completed the Branch Cleanup documentation.

You now understand how Custy safely evaluates and removes Git branches using layered filtering and conservative defaults.

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What's Next?

You have completed the entire Cleanup command documentation, including:

• Cleanup Overview
• Backup Cleanup
• Branch Cleanup

The next command in the Custy documentation roadmap is Version, where we'll document how Custy detects, calculates, and manages project versioning using SemVer, PEP 440, Git Count, Date, and Commitizen strategies.