Clean output directory

[dmurvihill]

I changed the name of one of my input files, and now the previous output file with the old name is still sitting around and getting stale. I worry that if I also forget to update file name in my documentation templates, my docs simply will stop updating with the code and the reason will not be obvious.

Could I have a flag that, in addition to saving all files to the output directory, also lists the output directory and removes any that don't have a match?

Thanks! Love this tool.

dolan@Dolans-MacBook-Pro 20250723_stop_throwing_errors % ls -a build/                
.	..
dolan@Dolans-MacBook-Pro 20250723_stop_throwing_errors % npx bluehawk snip -o build tests
parsed file: /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/test_samples.ts
parsed file: /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/test_test.ts
parsed file: /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/mylog
wrote text file based on /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/test_samples.snippet.test-snippet.ts -> build/test_samples.snippet.test-snippet.ts
Processed 3 files:
- 0 binary files
- 3 text files
- 0 errors
- 1 files written
dolan@Dolans-MacBook-Pro 20250723_stop_throwing_errors % ls build 
test_samples.snippet.test-snippet.ts
dolan@Dolans-MacBook-Pro 20250723_stop_throwing_errors % mv tests/test_samples.ts tests/test_bluehawk.ts
dolan@Dolans-MacBook-Pro 20250723_stop_throwing_errors % npx bluehawk snip -o build tests               
parsed file: /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/test_bluehawk.ts
parsed file: /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/test_test.ts
parsed file: /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/mylog
wrote text file based on /Users/dolan/writing/20250723_stop_throwing_errors/tests/test_bluehawk.snippet.test-snippet.ts -> build/test_bluehawk.snippet.test-snippet.ts
Processed 3 files:
- 0 binary files
- 3 text files
- 0 errors
- 1 files written
dolan@Dolans-MacBook-Pro 20250723_stop_throwing_errors % ls build 
test_bluehawk.snippet.test-snippet.ts	test_samples.snippet.test-snippet.ts

[dacharyc]

Another good suggestion! Internally, we have had a separate process for removing stale files that became decoupled from source. We couldn't delete them until we updated any documentation transcluding those files, or we would break the docs. For folks using different workflows, it makes sense to provide a flag to automate the deletion of stale files.

Similar to my reply on your other issue, it will likely be some time before we get a chance to tackle any new features for Bluehawk. But if you want to PR to add this flag, we'd be happy to have it!