oxo-flow clean
Clean workflow outputs and temporary files. Removes files declared as outputs in the workflow's rules.
Usage
oxo-flow clean [OPTIONS] <WORKFLOW>
Arguments
Argument
Description
<WORKFLOW>
Path to the .oxoflow workflow file
Options
Option
Short
Default
Description
--dry-run
-n
—
Show what would be cleaned without deleting
--force
—
—
Skip the confirmation prompt
--orphans
—
—
Clean orphaned temporary files (chunks from interrupted transforms)
--verbose
-v
—
Enable debug-level logging
Examples
Preview what would be cleaned
oxo-flow clean pipeline.oxoflow -n
Clean with confirmation prompt
oxo-flow clean pipeline.oxoflow
Clean without confirmation
oxo-flow clean pipeline.oxoflow --force
# When a transform operation is interrupted (Ctrl+C), chunk files
# may remain in .oxo-flow/chunks/. Use --orphans to clean them.
oxo-flow clean pipeline.oxoflow --orphans
Output
Dry-run output
oxo-flow 0.6.1 — Bioinformatics Pipeline Engine
Would clean (dry-run):
results/trimmed/sample1_R1.fastq.gz (exists)
results/trimmed/sample1_R2.fastq.gz (exists)
results/aligned/{sample}.bam (wildcard, skipped)
results/report.html (not found)
Total: 4 output patterns
Clean output
oxo-flow 0.6.1 — Bioinformatics Pipeline Engine
Clean: 2 file(s) will be deleted. Continue? [y/N]
y
✓ results/trimmed/sample1_R1.fastq.gz
✓ results/trimmed/sample1_R2.fastq.gz
Done: 2 deleted, 0 failed, 1 not found, 1 wildcard skipped, 0 rejected
Notes
Wildcard patterns (containing { and }) are skipped because they cannot be resolved to specific files without runtime context
Path Traversal Protection strictly rejects paths that begin with /, ~, or contain .., marking them as rejected and preventing arbitrary file deletion
Non-existent files are silently skipped (not counted as errors)
Without --force, a confirmation prompt is shown before deleting any files
Use --dry-run to preview the list of files that would be affected before committing to a clean
Only files declared as rule output are targeted — input files, scripts, and environment specs are never deleted