Developer builds tool to detect self-referencing stale docs AI agents leave behind
A developer working with AI coding agents found their 36 repositories had accumulated around 1,200 markdown files, many of them outdated planning and summary documents generated during coding sessions. Simple cleanup rules based on file age or inbound reference counts proved unreliable, as one folder of 13 stale files was found to be entirely self-referencing in a closed loop. Only one of the 13 files had a genuine external reference from a README and an active script. The developer built a Node.js scanner that sorts files into three buckets — active, stale, and orphan — and moves ambiguous cases to a recoverable trash folder rather than deleting them. The tool flags 86% of files across the repos, but the developer acknowledges the stale middle category still requires human review and has no automated solution for large-scale cases.
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