website/docs/cli-reference/purge.md
Generated from bd help --doc purge
Permanently delete closed ephemeral beads and their associated data.
Closed ephemeral beads (wisps, transient molecules) accumulate rapidly and have no value once closed. This command removes them to reclaim storage.
Deletes: issues, dependencies, labels, events, and comments for matching beads. Skips: pinned beads (protected).
To delete closed non-ephemeral beads (regular tasks, features, bugs, etc.)
use bd prune instead.
For full Dolt storage reclaim after deleting many rows, follow with bd flatten
so history can be collapsed and old chunks can be garbage-collected.
EXAMPLES: bd purge # Preview what would be purged bd purge --force # Delete all closed ephemeral beads bd purge --older-than 7d --force # Only purge items closed 7+ days ago bd purge --pattern "-wisp-" # Only purge matching ID pattern bd purge --dry-run # Detailed preview with stats
bd purge [flags]
Flags:
--dry-run Preview what would be purged with stats
-f, --force Actually purge (without this, shows preview)
--older-than string Only purge beads closed more than N ago (e.g., 7d, 2w, 30)
--pattern string Only purge beads matching ID glob pattern (e.g., *-wisp-*)