daft remove

Delete branches and their worktrees

Usage

daft remove [OPTIONS] <BRANCHES>
daft remove -f <BRANCHES>

This is equivalent to git worktree-branch -d (safe delete). Use -f to force-delete branches regardless of merge status (git worktree-branch -D).

Description

Deletes one or more local branches along with their associated worktrees in a single operation. Arguments can be branch names, worktree paths, or sandbox names.

Sandboxes

Anonymous detached worktrees created by daft — daft go <commit-ish> sandboxes and daft start --fork forks — are removed by their directory name or path, exactly like branch worktrees:

daft remove v1.18.0          # a tag sandbox, by name
daft remove main-fork-2      # a fork, by name
daft remove ../brave-otter   # by path
daft remove 'main-fork*'     # a wildcard over sandbox names

A branch sharing a sandbox's spelling always wins the name — the sandbox reading applies only when no such branch exists. There is no branch or remote to delete, so only the worktree goes; pre/post-remove hooks still run. Two safety checks replace the branch checks: the worktree must be clean, and its HEAD must still sit at the commit the sandbox was pinned at. Commits made on a detached HEAD exist nowhere else, so a moved HEAD refuses removal — promote the work first with daft start <new-branch> from inside the sandbox, or pass -f to discard it. A detached worktree daft did not create (no identity record) keeps the historical refusal and is never treated as a sandbox.

Wildcards

Sandbox names may be given as wildcard patterns: * matches any run of characters and ? exactly one. daft remove 'main-fork*' sweeps every fork minted off main in one command — the natural cleanup after a daft start --fork -n 3 fan-out. Each matched sandbox still passes the safety checks above, and one refusal aborts the whole run (fix it or pass -f).

Patterns match sandbox names only. They never expand to branches — removing a branch also deletes its remote, and fleet-scale branch cleanup is daft prune's job — and never to paths. A pattern that matches no live sandbox aborts the command rather than silently removing nothing; if branches did match the pattern, the error names them so you can spell them out deliberately.

Quote the pattern ('main-fork*') so your shell passes it through: zsh errors on globs that match nothing in the current directory, and an unquoted glob that does match local files would rewrite your arguments before daft sees them.

When invoked outside any git repository, daft remove accepts absolute or relative worktree paths and discovers the owning repository from the path itself, so worktrees can be cleaned up without first cd-ing into a sibling worktree. All paths in a single invocation must belong to the same repository.

--repo <name> addresses another cataloged repository by name instead of by path, from inside a different repository or from outside any repository:

daft remove --repo api feature-x

The resolved destination is announced before any work begins. Because the removal happens elsewhere, your current directory stays valid and your shell is never relocated. A --repo removal also runs non-interactively: a branch whose refined daft files would normally raise a consolidation prompt aborts instead, with the usual guidance to consolidate with daft file merge or pass -f up front -- it never waits on a keypress about a repository you are not standing in. Combining --repo with a worktree path is an error -- the path already identifies its own repository. There is no --all-repos form; removing one branch across every repository is rarely intended, and fleet-wide cleanup is daft prune's job.

Note that --repo is a flag rather than a positional. daft remove api feature-x always means "remove the branches api and feature-x in the current repository" -- the positional slot is a list of branches or paths and is never reinterpreted as a repository name.

By default, the remote branch is not deleted. To also delete the remote branch, set daft.branchDelete.remote true or use daft config remote-sync --on. You can also pass --remote to delete only the remote branch while keeping the local worktree and branch, or --local to skip the remote entirely regardless of config.

The remote delete pushes no content, so the repo's pre-push hook is skipped by default (configurable via daft.pushVerify; --no-verify skips it unconditionally). daft.pushVerify is the base setting every daft push reads, so it also affects the branch-creation upstream push; scope it to that push alone with daft.checkout.pushVerify. See Git Hooks for details.

Safety checks prevent accidental data loss. Use -f (--force) to override. For the default branch (e.g. main), -f removes its worktree only -- the local branch ref and remote branch are always preserved.

An unmerged branch does not need -f when it is identical to a remote branch that this removal preserves: the commits stay reachable at the remote, and daft go <branch> brings them back. Daft confirms that with the remote itself rather than trusting refs/remotes/<remote>/<branch>, which is a local cache that outlives a server-side delete. That check contacts the remote (as the squash-merge check may already do, via gh/glab); it is bounded at 15 seconds, runs non-interactively, and refuses rather than assumes when the remote cannot be reached. Enabling remote deletion (daft.branchDelete.remote, or --remote) withdraws the allowance, because then the remote copy does not survive.

Options

Option	Description	Default
-f, --force	Force deletion even if not fully merged
--local	Delete only locally; do not touch the remote branch
--remote	Delete only the remote branch; keep the local worktree and branch
--repo <REPO>	Remove branches in another cataloged repository
-v, --verbose	Show detailed progress
-q, --quiet	Suppress non-error output

Global Options

Option	Description
-h, --help	Print help information
-V, --version	Print version information

See Also

• daft config to configure remote sync behavior
• git worktree-branch for full options reference