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pstack: worktree-cleanup treats untracked and ignored files as disposable (--force, rm -rf) #449
Description
The worktree-cleanup playbook and scripts/worktree-audit.sh (pinned at 12d587d) treat untracked and ignored files in a worktree as disposable.
scripts/worktree-audit.shclassifies untracked files as "disposable untracked scratch" (line 44) and counts only tracked edits as WIP.playbooks/worktree-cleanup.mdstep 4 pauses only on tracked uncommitted edits (wip:N). Step 5 then runsgit worktree remove --force <path>, and when the directory survives on ignored files,rm -rffollowed bygit worktree prune.
Untracked and ignored files are often the most valuable thing in an agent worktree: run artifacts, evidence directories, local graphs and indexes, .env files, scratch notes. None of these are recoverable from the branch. --force overrides exactly the refusal Git gives to protect them.
Expected: untracked and ignored files count as irreversible loss, like tracked WIP. The playbook pauses on them (or lists them for a decision) and never falls back to --force or rm -rf. A plain git worktree remove that refuses is the correct stop.
Links: playbook, audit script.
We use pstack 0.15.5 unmodified and route cleanup to our own retirement procedure until this changes.
Activity
deanrie commentedon Oct 3, 2026
Hey, thanks for the report. I reproduced it on a synthetic repo, and it’s worse than described in one way.
With a worktree that has one untracked file plus an ignored
build/andrun.log, the currentworktree-audit.shreportsscratch:1and puts it in thereviewbucket. Ignored files aren’t even detected becausegit statusruns without--ignored. The playbook then treats that as safe to remove with--force. PR #459 fixes both issues. With it, the same worktree shows up aswip:3and lands inhold-wip, and the playbook no longer falls back to--force,rm -rf, orprune.One correction to the expected behavior in the issue. A plain
git worktree removeis not a sufficient stop. Git only refuses when there are untracked or modified files. A worktree that contains only ignored files gets deleted silently even without--force. I verified this. That’s why #459’s explicitstatus --untracked-files=all --ignored=matchingcheck before removal is the right guard, instead of relying on Git to refuse.I reviewed #459 and flagged it to the pstack maintainer for merge. Until it lands, your own retirement procedure is the right call.