CleanWorkingFiles

CleanWorkingFiles is a lightweight .NET console application for cleaning up automatically generated build and cache directories in .NET and frontend projects. It helps reclaim disk space by deleting folders like bin, obj, node_modules, and other build artifacts or cache files that are safe to remove.

Features

• Reads configuration from a local config.json file (located next to the executable).
• Recursively scans the specified root directory.
• Deletes:
  • Directories listed in directoriesToDelete (e.g., bin, obj, node_modules).
  • Files matching extensions from extensionsToDelete (e.g., .log, .tmp).
• Skips paths defined in excludePaths.
• Shows a preview of all planned deletions before executing.
• Requires explicit confirmation (YES) before removing anything.
• Displays live progress while scanning and deleting.

Configuration (clean.json)

Example configuration file:

{
  "root": "C:\\Projects\\old",
  "directoriesToDelete": [
    "bin", "obj", "node_modules", "dist", "build",
    ".vs", ".idea", "_ReSharper.Caches", ".angular", ".next"
  ],
  "extensionsToDelete": [
    ".log", ".tmp", ".cache"
  ],
  "excludePaths": [
    "C:\\Projects\\old\\MySpecialProject",
    "C:\\Projects\\old\\Legacy\\DoNotTouch"
  ]
}

• root -> the starting directory for the scan.
• directoriesToDelete -> directory names to remove (matches by name, anywhere in the tree).
• extensionsToDelete -> file extensions to remove (with or without dot).
• excludePaths -> full paths that should be ignored (including their files and subdirectories).

Safety Notes

• The tool never deletes without showing a full preview. Check carefully everything it would delete before confirmation!
• You must type YES to confirm deletions.
• Keep excludePaths up to date to protect sensitive directories.