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jrichlen/graveyard

v1.0.0MIT

Archive old GitHub repositories into a single private graveyard repo as restorable git bundles, then safely delete the originals. Captures full history (branches, tags, PR refs) and never deletes an original until its backup is verified.

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🪦 Graveyard

Archive old GitHub repositories into a single private "graveyard" repo as restorable git bundles — then safely delete the originals.

Got a GitHub account cluttered with dead side-projects, abandoned experiments, and one-off repos you'll "definitely come back to"? Graveyard walks you through retiring them: it captures each repo's complete history (every branch, tag, and even pull-request refs) into a single .bundle file, stores them all in one cheap private repo, and only deletes an original after its backup is verified present. Nothing is lost, and your repo list gets a lot shorter.

It ships as a Claude Code plugin but works with any coding agent — the core is plain bash + git + gh, driven by a standard SKILL.md and an AGENTS.md entry point.

Part of the agent-plugins marketplace.

What it does

  1. Lists your repos with the details you need to decide (size, last push, fork status, visibility).
  2. You choose which to retire. Empty repos and forks are flagged — no point bundling those.
  3. Bundles each chosen repo: git clone --mirror + git bundle create --all captures the full history, then verifies the bundle is valid.
  4. Documents every archive — a per-repo README.md with restore commands plus a metadata.json snapshot, and a top-level index.
  5. Pushes the graveyard to a private GitHub repo and confirms each bundle actually landed.
  6. Generates a guarded delete script for you to review and run. It re-checks each backup exists on GitHub before deleting the original.

Why git bundles?

A git bundle is a single file of real git objects — not a zip of the working tree. You can git clone straight from it, and it preserves the entire history. Mirror-cloning first means the bundle holds every ref, so a restored repo is indistinguishable from the original. That fidelity is exactly what makes deleting the original safe.

# Restoring is a one-liner:
git clone my-old-project.bundle my-old-project

Quick start

As a Claude Code plugin

# Add the marketplace, then install:
/plugin marketplace add JRichlen/agent-plugins
/plugin install graveyard@jrichlen

Then just ask, or run the command:

/graveyard

"Help me archive my old GitHub repos into a graveyard and delete them."

With any other agent (Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Aider, …)

git clone https://github.com/JRichlen/agent-plugins
cd agent-plugins/plugins/graveyard

Point your agent at AGENTS.md (most read it automatically) and ask it to archive your old repos. See docs/installation.md for per-harness setup.

Or run the scripts directly, no agent

# Back up one repo:
skills/graveyard/scripts/archive-repo.sh octocat/Hello-World ./graveyard

# Generate a guarded deletion script:
skills/graveyard/scripts/generate-delete-script.sh octocat graveyard \
  --bundled "Hello-World" > delete-originals.sh

Requirements

  • git
  • GitHub CLI gh, authenticated: gh auth login
  • Deletion needs the delete_repo scope — the generated script adds it for you interactively (one-time browser step).

Safety model

Deleting a GitHub repo is irreversible, so Graveyard is built around not trusting itself:

  • The tool never deletes anything directly. It generates a script you review and run.
  • That script re-verifies each bundle exists in the graveyard on GitHub before deleting its original. No backup, no delete.
  • Repos deleted without a backup (empty repos, forks) are listed explicitly in the script — nothing is deleted silently.
  • The graveyard repo defaults to private, because bundles contain full history including anything ever committed.

These invariants are enforced by the marketplace's eval suite — see evals/.

Documentation

  • Installation — per-harness setup (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Aider, standalone).
  • Usage walkthrough — a full end-to-end example.
  • How it works — bundles, mirror clones, the PR-ref detail, and restore mechanics.

Layout

plugins/graveyard/
├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json     # Claude Code plugin manifest
├── AGENTS.md                      # cross-harness entry point
├── commands/graveyard.md          # /graveyard slash command
├── skills/graveyard/
│   ├── SKILL.md                   # the portable workflow (read this)
│   └── scripts/
│       ├── archive-repo.sh        # bundle one repo (verified)
│       └── generate-delete-script.sh  # emit guarded delete script
├── docs/
└── README.md

License

MIT — see LICENSE.