cactus clean

Remove all build artifacts and cached files

Overview

The cactus clean command removes all build artifacts, intermediate files, and caches to free up disk space or ensure a fresh build.

Usage

cactus clean

This command removes:

• Build directory (build/)
• Compiled libraries (.so, .a, .dylib)
• Object files (.o)
• CMake cache files
• Python build artifacts
• Temporary files

What Gets Preserved

The following are NOT removed:

• Downloaded model weights in weights/
• Your source code
• Configuration files
• The cactus CLI itself

When to Use

Run cactus clean when:

• Switching between build targets (iOS ↔ Android)
• Encountering build errors
• Freeing up disk space
• Starting a fresh build after code changes
• Resolving CMake configuration issues

Example Workflow

# Clean all artifacts
cactus clean

# Rebuild for iOS
cactus build --apple

# Or rebuild for Android
cactus build --android

Disk Space Recovered

Typical space freed by cactus clean:

• Debug build: ~500MB - 1GB
• Release build: ~200MB - 400MB
• Multiple targets: ~1GB - 2GB

Cleaning Weights

To also remove downloaded models:

rm -rf weights/

This permanently deletes all downloaded models. You’ll need to re-download them with cactus download.

Cleaning Python Cache

To clean Python-specific caches:

find . -type d -name "__pycache__" -exec rm -rf {} +
find . -type f -name "*.pyc" -delete

See Also

cactus build

Build native libraries

Installation

Initial setup and installation