NATES-CLEANER.EXE

DEFRAG for developer machines.

Once a week the disk fills up again: dozens of git worktrees, gigabytes of node_modules, caches, and dev servers nobody remembers starting. Nate's Cleaner draws it all as a defrag map, cleans what is safe in one click, and hands abandoned work to an agent.

Try the demo Install

macOS and Linux · Node.js 20+ · no dependencies · runs on your machine; nothing is uploaded

Nate's Cleaner: a defrag-style map of worktrees, node_modules, caches and dev processes, with alerts for low disk space and orphaned processes.
What it finds
  • Git worktrees: size, branch, last used, uncommitted files, commits nothing else has, and dev servers running inside.
  • Stale worktree entries whose folders are already gone.
  • node_modules across every project.
  • Running dev processes: ports, memory, uptime, and the orphaned ones whose folder disappeared.
  • Caches (npm, pnpm, Xcode, ~/Library/Caches, ~/.cache) for awareness.
Cleans safely
  • One-click Clean only for items that cannot lose work: clean worktrees (their branch is kept), stale entries, and reinstallable node_modules.
  • Every item is re-checked right before it runs; anything that changed is skipped, never forced.
  • Files go to the Trash on the same disk. Nothing is deleted or copied across disks.
  • Processes are stopped only if the same pid still has the same start time.
Hands the rest to an agent

Uncommitted files and commits that exist nowhere else need judgment. Reconcile builds one prompt per project with the live facts and the rules: rescue work onto a branch, follow the repo's AGENTS.md, never force, ask before discarding. Copy it into Claude or Codex in that folder.

Tells you when to clean

A banner in the map, and opt-in desktop notifications from a background check every 6 hours: low disk, lots of safely reclaimable space, orphaned dev servers, piles of stale entries.

Install
curl -fsSL https://cleaner.nates-software.com/install.sh | sh

Then run nates-cleaner to open the map (it is served on 127.0.0.1 with a one-time token), nates-cleaner scan for a text report, or nates-cleaner alerts on for notifications. The installer checks the download's SHA-256 and installs into ~/.local/share/nates-cleaner with a nates-cleaner command in ~/.local/bin. Prefer to look first? Read the installer or download the source.

Version 0.2.0
From Nate's Software