Removing old Git branches

We can use Git hooks to automatically remove branches after they’re deleted from GitHub.

Building our Git hook

1. Configure Git to automatically prune remote branches on fetch. This way, if a branch’s remote is deleted, that information will be updated locally whenever we pull from the remote.

   git config --global fetch.prune true
   

2. Configure a Git hook to remove branches with deleted remotes. We can configure a centralized hooks directory for all repositories on our system.

   mkdir -p ~/.git-hooks
   git config --global core.hooksPath ~/.git-hooks
   # list all branches. ignore current branch (starts with `*`). select branches with deleted remotes. select branch
   echo "
   # list all branches
   git branch -vv | \
   # ignore current branch (prefixed with *)
   grep -vE '^\*' | \
   # select branches with deleted remote
   grep -E '\[.*: gone\]' | \
   # pick branch names
   awk '{ print $1 }' | \
   # delete branchs
   xargs git branch -D
   " >> ~/.git-hooks/pre-push
   

Now our old branches will be removed whenever we push to our remote.