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fork-cleaner 2.4.0, published by caarlos0, is a lightweight open-source utility designed to help GitHub users reclaim control over cluttered repositories by identifying and removing obsolete forks. Aimed primarily at developers who maintain dozens or hundreds of forked projects, the tool scans the authenticated user’s GitHub account, compares last-commit dates, open pull requests, and branches ahead or behind the upstream, then presents a sorted list of inactive forks that are safe to delete. Typical use cases include spring-cleaning personal accounts after hackathons, tidying organization namespaces before compliance audits, and automating housekeeping scripts for continuous-integration bots that routinely fork target repositories. Because fork-cleaner operates through GitHub’s official REST and GraphQL APIs, it respects private-scope permissions and never alters code history; deletions are executed only after explicit confirmation, reducing the risk of accidentally removing active contributions. The project has released three tagged versions since its inception, with 2.4.0 introducing parallel repository inspection and improved OAuth token caching for faster throughput on large portfolios. Written in Go, the single-binary distribution runs cross-platform on Windows, macOS, and Linux without further dependencies, making it suitable for both interactive desktop use and scheduled server jobs. As repository hygiene becomes an increasingly important aspect of software supply-chain security, fork-cleaner occupies a niche within the development-tooling category that complements existing GitHub interface features. The software is available for free on get.nero.com, with downloads provided via trusted Windows package sources (e.g. winget), always delivering the latest version, and supporting batch installation of multiple applications.
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