Config Gc

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The user says clean up my config
• Too many skills
• My .claude is bloated
• Asks for a periodic config review

Example prompts

• “clean up my config”
• “config GC”
• “too many skills”
• “/config-gc”

Workflow steps

6 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Append-only configs leak. Skills, memory files, hooks, and permission entries only ever get added. Without periodic review they rot…
2. 2Regular audits beat one-time purges. Scan every ~30 days, propose a small batch of candidates each time.
3. 3Per-channel strategies. Each accumulation type (skills, hooks, permissions, ...) has its own staleness signals — don't apply one rule…
4. 4Soft-delete first. Rename to .disabled > move to ~/.claude/_gc_trash/ > real deletion. Always keep an undo path.
5. 5Forced human-in-the-loop. Every candidate gets its own [y/n/skip] confirmation. No "yes to all" shortcut.
6. 6Keep a log. Every GC run appends to ~/.claude/gc_log.md: what was touched, why, and how to undo it.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 2d515e4. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • jq

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Config Gc loads about 2k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 106 tokens; SKILL.md has 857 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~106

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~2k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from affaan-m/ECC at commit 2d515e4, republished under its MIT licence (© affaan-m). 857 words, ~1,979 tokens.

name

config-gc

description

Garbage collection for your Claude Code configuration. Periodically scans ~/.claude (skills, memory, hooks, permissions, MCP servers, caches) for redundant, stale, orphaned, or low-value items, then walks the user through a confirm-each-deletion cleanup. Use when the user says "clean up my config", "config GC", "too many skills", "audit my setup", "my .claude is bloated", or asks for a periodic config review.

metadata.origin

ECC

for f in ~/.claude/hooks/*; do
  name=$(basename "$f")
  grep -rq "$name" ~/.claude/settings.json ~/.claude/settings.local.json 2>/dev/null \
    || echo "ORPHAN: $f"
done

jq -r '.permissions.allow[]' ~/.claude/settings.local.json | sort | uniq -d
if jq -e '.permissions.allow | index("Bash(*)")' ~/.claude/settings.local.json >/dev/null; then
  jq -r '.permissions.allow[]' ~/.claude/settings.local.json \
    | grep '^Bash(' | grep -vF 'Bash(*)'
fi

find ~/.claude/file-history ~/.claude/shell-snapshots -type f -mtime +30 \
  -exec du -k {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -rn | head -20

gc_date=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/_gc_trash/$gc_date
mv ~/.claude/skills/dead-skill ~/.claude/_gc_trash/$gc_date/
echo "$(date -Iseconds) moved skills/dead-skill -> _gc_trash/$gc_date/ (undo: mv back)" >> ~/.claude/gc_log.md

cp ~/.claude/settings.local.json ~/.claude/settings.local.json.bak
echo "$(date -Iseconds) removed permission entry: Bash(git push) (undo: restore from .bak or re-add)" >> ~/.claude/gc_log.md
jq '.permissions.allow -= ["Bash(git push)"]' ~/.claude/settings.local.json.bak \
  > ~/.claude/settings.local.json

© affaan-m, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/config-gc of affaan-m/ECC.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 2d515e4

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 1 other GitHub owner. This page covers the copy in affaan-m/ECC, which our catalogue first saw on October 9, 2026.

• templetongroup/radiantskills/config-gc