please purge

Permanently removes a file or folder from your entire git history, not just the working tree.

please purge secrets.env
please purge config/credentials

The boring, error-prone task of scrubbing a leaked secret or an accidentally committed file out of every commit that ever touched it.

How it works#

please uses git filter-repo if it is installed, git’s own recommended tool for this, falling back to the built-in git filter-branch otherwise. It then cleans up the now-unreachable objects so the old content is actually gone, not just unreferenced.

Confirmation and pushing#

This rewrites commit hashes for the file’s entire history and everything after it, so please shows you exactly what that means and requires typing yes first.

Every collaborator needs to re-clone or run please sync exactly afterward, since their local history has now diverged permanently.