add `charmcraft purge` or `charmcraft cleanall` command to clean all instances
Metadata
Current evaluation
Proposed `charmcraft purge` to reclaim disk space by clearing provider caches and build instances; the design is taking shape, but implementation is absent and the former blocker is resolved.
Suggested action: keep open
Reason: Maintainers acknowledged the feature and proposed concrete `purge` modes, but the current codebase has no purge command; the old unused clean implementation was later removed in #1571. The explicit blocker, craft-providers#639, is now closed after instance-listing support was implemented in craft-providers#930, so this valid feature can proceed after a final design decision.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
58
Quick Win:
13
Complexity:
68
Confidence:
93
Actionability:
71
Issue body
I ran out of space because `/var/snap/lxd/common/lxd/storage-pools/default/containers/charmcraft*` had a lot of stuff in it.
```
$ sudo ls /var/snap/lxd/common/lxd/storage-pools/default/containers
charmcraft_base-instance-charmcraft-buildd-base-v00-36b64d8a932634714eb2 charmcraft_charmcraft-grafana-agent-22-0-0-amd64 charmcraft_charmcraft-prometheus-k8s-36-0-0-amd64
charmcraft_base-instance-charmcraft-buildd-base-v00-f36807e72ea445fd8492 charmcraft_charmcraft-grafana-agent-k8s-2-0-0-amd64 charmcraft_charmcraft-pusher-54-0-0-amd64
charmcraft_charmcraft-alertmanager-k8s-5-0-0-amd64 charmcraft_charmcraft-grafana-agent-k8s-22-0-0-amd64 juju-0728c2-2
charmcraft_charmcraft-application-307288-0-0-amd64 charmcraft_charmcraft-kafka-292835-0-0-amd64 juju-0728c2-4
charmcraft_charmcraft-avalanche-k8s-8-0-0-amd64 charmcraft_charmcraft-mimir-k8s-28-0-0-amd64 juju-541575-0
```
I wonder if it makes sense to add a `--all` flag to `clean` so it will run the equivalent of:
```
sudo bash -c "rm -rf /var/snap/lxd/common/lxd/storage-pools/default/containers/charmcraft*"
```
More precisely,
```bash
for instance in $(lxc list --project=charmcraft --format json | jq -r '.[] | select(.name | startswith("charmcraft-")) | .name');
do
lxc --project=charmcraft delete $instance
done
```
Or, in nushell,
```
(lxc list --project=charmcraft --format json
| from json
| get name
| where { |it| $it | str starts-with 'charmcraft-' }
| each { |it| lxc --project=charmcraft delete $it }
)
```
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
58
Quick Win:
13
Complexity:
68
Confidence:
93
Actionability:
71
|
keep open | Proposed `charmcraft purge` to reclaim disk space by clearing provider caches and build instances; the design is taking shape, but implementation is absent and the former blocker is resolved. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Impact:
40
Quick Win:
12
Complexity:
50
Confidence:
80
Actionability:
60
|
keep open | Feature request to add a charmcraft purge command to clean build containers, pip cache, and base images. Actively discussed by maintainers but currently blocked by craft-providers#639. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
55
Quick Win:
19
Staleness:
40
Complexity:
65
Confidence:
72
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Feature request to add a `charmcraft purge` command to clean all LXD build containers and pip caches. Design discussion is active with multiple flag options proposed. Blocked by craft-providers#639. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
50
Complexity:
70
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
5
|
keep open | Request to add a charmcraft purge command to clean LXD containers, pip cache, and base images. Currently under discussion with maintainers and blocked by an upstream dependency. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
45
Complexity:
65
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Feature request to add a charmcraft purge command to clean LXD containers, pip cache, and base images. Maintainers have proposed a detailed flag structure but the issue is currently blocked by an upstream dependency. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
65
Complexity:
60
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Feature request to add a charmcraft purge command for cleaning LXD containers, pip cache, and base images. Scope defined by maintainers, currently blocked by an upstream dependency. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Blocked By:
canonical/craft-providers#639
(confidence 100%)
Explicitly identified as the blocker; it is now closed, with the required instance listing implemented by craft-providers#930.
Related issues
No related issues found above the similarity threshold.