Remove .cc-writes
Claude Code stages edits in .cc-writes directories, usually under .claude,
and leaves the empty shells behind once the writes have landed. This extension
walks your workspace and removes those directories — but only the ones that are
completely empty, so nothing you still have on disk can be lost.
What it removes, exactly
The rules are narrow on purpose:
Only directories whose name matches rmccwrites.names — .cc-writes by
default. Names are compared as base names; nothing else is a candidate.
Only when the directory is empty. Every removal is a non-recursive
directory delete. A .cc-writes holding so much as one file or one
subdirectory is left alone, and the walk re-checks emptiness immediately
before deleting, not just during the scan.
Plus the containers left hollow behind them. rmccwrites.prune lists
names that follow their contents out, .claude by default: if removing
.claude/.cc-writes leaves .claude with nothing in it, .claude goes too.
A .claude that still holds settings, agents or anything else stays. Set
rmccwrites.prune to [] if you would rather keep the empty container.
It never leaves the folders you point it at. The walk starts at your workspace
folders — or at the folder you right-clicked — and only descends. .git
directories are never entered, and symlinks are never followed, so a symlinked
directory cannot be used to step outside the tree. Removals are permanent: they
do not go to the trash.
Usage
Run Remove .cc-writes: Preview Empty .cc-writes Directories (Dry Run)
from the Command Palette. Nothing is touched; the extension scans every
workspace folder behind a cancellable progress notification and counts what
it finds.
A quick pick opens listing every directory that can be removed, by
workspace-relative path. From there you can pick Remove Them to go ahead,
Show Log to read the full dry-run output, or any listed directory to
reveal it in the Explorer. Picking a directory or pressing Escape closes the
list without removing anything.
Choosing Remove Them starts a second pass that does the removal, and a
notification reports how many directories went. If anything could not be read
or deleted, the notification is a warning with the error count and the log has
the details.
Remove .cc-writes: Remove Empty .cc-writes Directories is the same flow with
the intent stated up front: it still scans first and still shows the same
confirmation list before touching anything, unless you turn
rmccwrites.confirmBeforeRemoving off, in which case it scans and removes in
one go.
To clean one subtree instead of the whole workspace, right-click a folder in the
Explorer and choose Remove Empty .cc-writes Directories Here. Multi-select
works; every selected folder is scanned. The scanned folder is itself a
candidate when its name matches.
Everything a run did — the roots, the settings each root was scanned with, and
one line per directory found or removed — goes to the Remove .cc-writes
output channel, reachable with Remove .cc-writes: Show Log or the Show
Log button on any notification.
Working with .gitignore
.claude is usually gitignored, which is awkward for a cleaner that skips
ignored directories — the targets live inside the thing being skipped. So the
rules are:
With rmccwrites.respectGitignore on (the default), the walk reads
.gitignore files at and below each scanned folder, deeper files overriding
shallower ones and the last matching rule in a file winning, the way git does
it. Patterns support *, **, ?, [charset], ! negation, a trailing /
for directory-only rules and a leading / for anchoring. An ignored directory
prunes the whole subtree below it.
Target names and the names in rmccwrites.descend (.claude by default) are
always entered anyway, ignored or not.
Turning rmccwrites.respectGitignore off scans everything, .git and
symlinks excepted.
Only .gitignore files inside the scanned tree are read; a .gitignore above
the workspace root, your global excludes and .git/info/exclude are not
consulted.
Settings
names, descend, prune and respectGitignore are resource-scoped, so a
multi-root workspace can configure each folder separately.
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
rmccwrites.names |
[".cc-writes"] |
Directory names removed when they are completely empty. Base names only — entries containing / are ignored. Nested matches are handled bottom-up, so an empty match inside another match removes both. |
rmccwrites.descend |
[".claude"] |
Directory names entered even when a .gitignore file excludes them. .claude is typically ignored, yet holds the .cc-writes targets. |
rmccwrites.prune |
[".claude"] |
Directory names removed once the scan leaves them empty, so removing .claude/.cc-writes takes .claude with it. Set to [] to keep such containers. |
rmccwrites.respectGitignore |
true |
Skip directories excluded by a .gitignore file at or below the scanned folder. Target names and rmccwrites.descend names are always entered; any other ignored directory prunes everything below it. Turn this off to scan those too. |
rmccwrites.confirmBeforeRemoving |
true |
List what was found and ask for confirmation before anything is removed. |
rmccwrites.revealLog |
false |
Open the log panel automatically at the end of every run. |
In the three name lists, blank entries, ., .., .git and anything
containing / are dropped, and duplicates are collapsed. A value that is not an
array falls back to the default; an explicitly empty array is taken at its word,
so "rmccwrites.names": [] means nothing will ever match.
Commands
Remove .cc-writes: Remove Empty .cc-writes Directories
(rmccwrites.clean) — scan every workspace folder and remove what is found,
after confirmation.
Remove .cc-writes: Preview Empty .cc-writes Directories (Dry Run)
(rmccwrites.preview) — scan without removing anything, then offer the
removal from the result list.
Remove Empty .cc-writes Directories Here (rmccwrites.cleanFolder) — the
Explorer folder context-menu entry, scoped to the selected folders. Not
offered in the Command Palette.
Remove .cc-writes: Show Log (rmccwrites.showLog) — open the output
channel.
