Removing Workflows

To delete an installed workflow run directory, we recommend using the cylc clean command. cylc clean takes care of deleting workflows on the local filesystem and any remote install targets. It follows any symlink directories specified in global.cylc[install][symlink dirs] (see A note on symlink directories below). You can also use cylc clean to just delete certain files or subdirectories (see Cleaning specific subdirectories or files below).

If you’ve used rose suite-clean before, the functionality is similar, but not identical.

Note

cylc clean only affects workflow run directories (located in the cylc-run directory). It will not affect workflow source directories.

Warning

cylc clean is intended for use on workflows installed with cylc install. If you clean a workflow that was instead written directly in the cylc-run directory and not backed up elsewhere, it will be lost.

Simple example of using cylc clean:

$ cylc clean myflow/run1
INFO - Removing directory: ~/cylc-run/myflow/run1

Cleaning on remote install targets

If any jobs in your workflow ran on a remote platform, Cylc will automatically remove the workflow files on there in addition to the local filesystem.

$ cylc clean remote-example
INFO - Cleaning on install target: enterprise1701
INFO - [enterprise1701]
        INFO - Removing directory: /home/user/cylc-run/remote-example/run1
INFO - Removing directory: ~/cylc-run/remote-example/run1

Note

This relies on determining which platforms were used from the workflow database. If the platforms recorded in the database are out of date with the global configuration, or if the database is missing altogether, you will have to manually remove the files on remote install targets.

You can also clean on just the local filesystem using the --local option, or just the remote install target using the --remote option.

Cleaning specific subdirectories or files

You can clean specific subdirectories or files inside a run directory using the --rm option (we refer to this as a targeted clean). For example, to remove the log and work directories:

$ cylc clean myflow --rm log --rm work

Colons can be used to delimit the items to clean, so the following is equivalent:

$ cylc clean myflow --rm log:work

You can also use globs. E.g., to remove all job logs for cycle points beginning with 2020:

$ cylc clean myflow --rm 'log/job/2020*'

Note

Make sure to place glob patterns in quotes.

A note on symlink directories

Does this affect me?

If you use symlink directories specified in global.cylc[install][symlink dirs], you might want to read this explanation of how Cylc handles them during cleaning.

If you manually delete a run directory (e.g., using the rm command or the file manager), only the symlinks themselves will be deleted, not the actual targets. In contrast, cylc clean follows the symlinks and deletes the targets.

It only does this for the symlinks that can be set in global.cylc[install][symlink dirs], not any custom user-created symlinks.
It does not actually look up the global configuration at time of cleaning; it simply detects what symlinks are present out of the possible ones.
It also does this for targeted clean (using the --rm option).