ZVM-CLEAN(1)

🧹 NAME 🧹

okay so this is zvm-clean(1) from the ZVM manual — User Commands section, bestie — and she’s the one who removes downloaded ZVM build archives and stale per-shell links. cleanup main character energy, no cap 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

zvm clean

🫶 DESCRIPTION 🫶

First up: zvm clean removes files ending in .zip, .xz, or .tar from the top level of the ZVM base directory. yup, those build-archive leftovers are getting yeeted. Installed Zig version directories are not removed — she is not coming for your actual installed versions, periodt. 💖

Then she garbage-collects the dedupe store: files in ~/.zvm/store whose hard-link count is 1 are no longer linked from any installed version, so they’re removed. and here’s the reassuring part — removing a store file never removes data an installed version still links to. lowkey the most careful little cleanup goblin 🧚

She also removes per-shell links created by zvm-env(1) that are more than a week old and whose shell is no longer running. only links whose names match ZVM’s naming scheme are considered, and links are removed without being followed — so nothing they point to is touched. fr fr, that distinction is doing a lot of work 💅

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• zvm(1)
• zvm-dedupe(1)
• zvm-env(1)
• zvm-uninstall(1)

💖 and that’s the page, bestie! ZVM v0.9.4, October 2026 — bye, love u, stay clean ✨