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Emptying a drive (drain-only volumes)

A full or failing drive can be marked drain-only. Omniscio then stops putting worktree folders and spare pool folders on it, keeps removing what is already there, and still cleans up on it as it always did. Below: what the mode does, what it deliberately does not do, the file that turns it on, and how a folder on such a drive is retired without risking unsaved work.

What it is for

Some drives need to give space back rather than take more: an almost-full disk, a slow mechanical drive, or one that is failing. Omniscio already knows how to refuse a drive outright, but refusing a drive also stops it being cleaned up, which strands exactly the folders you were trying to remove.

Drain-only is the middle state. On a drain-only drive Omniscio:

  • does not create new worktree folders there;
  • does not keep spare folders waiting there, does not hand one out, and does not re-check the spare folders it already has there;
  • keeps cleaning up there exactly as before.

What it does not do

It does not delete anything on its own judgement. A folder is removed only when Omniscio can prove it holds nothing that exists nowhere else: no uncommitted edit, no untracked file, no ignored work, and nothing on a branch that has not landed. If that cannot be proven — the drive is too slow to read, or the answer is unclear — the folder is left exactly where it is and tried again later.

Turning it on and off

The setting is one file in your Omniscio data folder, listing drive letters:

~/.amc/worktree-drain-only-volumes.json

["E:"]

Remove the letter, or empty the list, to put the drive back to normal. A missing or damaged file simply means no drive is drain-only — it can never break worktree creation or cleanup. Changes take effect within a minute, with no restart.

What happens to the folders already there

Omniscio retires them one at a time, in the background, whenever a spare folder on that drive is genuinely disposable:

  1. it proves the folder holds nothing unique, using the same checks it uses before reusing a folder;
  2. it moves the folder into that drive's own .trash folder — a rename on the same drive, so it is instant even on a slow disk;
  3. the folder is then deleted by the ordinary background cleanup, which is what actually frees the space.

Because step 2 is instant and step 3 is the normal cleanup you already have, space comes back through the same path as any other retired folder — nothing special has to run.

Related

  • Worktree cleanup and space recovery
  • Contract: .claude/memory/contracts/worktree-drain-only-volume-contract.md

Last verified 2026-11-04