status: active
timestamp: 2026-06-26
tags: [github, forks, cleanup, profile, audit-log]
chirag127 fork cleanup 2026-06-26 — bulk delete with downstream-aware sparelist
43 chirag127 forks deleted, 5 spared
chirag127 fork cleanup 2026-06-26
Scope
48 personal forks audited on chirag127. Hard-deleted 43. Spared 5 because they have downstream forkers (third-party users who would lose their parent link).
What got deleted (43)
All are chirag127/<slug> forks with 0 downstream forks at time of deletion:
Amazing-Python-Scripts, Chronus, Coding-Ninjas-Introduction-to-Python, Complete-Data-Science-With-Machine-Learning-And-NLP-2024, Complete-Python-3-Bootcamp, CouchPotatoServer, DigitalMenu, DigitalMenuBackend, EdgeGPT, Email-Scrape, Email-extractor, Extensity, Fake_News_Detection, Financial-aid-on-coursera-, Free-Courses-For-Everyone, GPTNeo, MyFilters, OpenHands, Plagiarism-checker-Python, ReinforcementLearningSpaceInvaders, SimpleRecommender, SnakeByRohan, Udacity-Computer-Vision-Nanodegree, api-book-part-one, clauneck, copilot-clone, email_extractor, free-llm-api-resources, headroom, langchain-course, learning-papers, odysseus, one-page-website-html-css-project, openai-codex-chrome-extension, picture-in-picture-chrome-extension, piracy-blocklists, programming-principles, py-googletrans, python-mini-projects, stable-diffusion, stable-diffusion-webui, thedev.id, udemy-dl.
What got spared (5)
Each has at least 1 downstream forker. Deleting would orphan those users’ parent links:
| Repo | Stars | Downstream forks | Reason to spare |
|---|---|---|---|
chirag127/Terabox-DL | 5 | 10 | Highest-impact downstream graph |
chirag127/Book-For-Programmers | 7 | 2 | Most-starred personal fork |
chirag127/SOCKS-Proxy-Checker | 1 | 1 | Live downstream user |
chirag127/goggles-quickstart | 0 | 1 | Live downstream user |
chirag127/human-eval | 0 | 1 | Live downstream user |
Deletion method
DELETE /repos/chirag127/<slug> via the REST API with a PAT carrying delete_repo scope.
curl -X DELETE \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $GH_ADMIN_PAT" \
-H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
-H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
"https://api.github.com/repos/chirag127/$slug"
# Returns 204 on success43 deletions in series, 0 failures.
Why hard-delete (not archive, not transfer)
- Archive — keeps the fork visible on profile, just dimmed. Doesn’t reduce clutter perception.
- Transfer to oriz-archive — would put 43 third-party-derived repos into the oriz-archive org. The org should hold OUR archived work, not other people’s stuff we briefly forked.
- Delete — slug becomes available immediately (no GH redirect for deleted forks of personal accounts). Acceptable because (a) these are FORKS of other people’s repos — anyone who wants the parent can just go find the parent at its original location; (b) zero downstream consumers per the spare-list filter.
Spare-list rule (captured as taste)
When deleting personal forks in bulk, spare anything where someone has forked YOUR fork. Stars are cheap signals; downstream forks mean a real human picked your fork as their upstream. Breaking their link is a real-world cost.
Stars-only forks (no downstream forks) are safe to delete.
What this leaves on chirag127
After cleanup, the chirag127 account has:
- 200 source repos (originals authored on the account)
- 5 spared forks (the ones with downstream forkers above)
- 0 archived repos
Plus the personal-profile assets (chirag127/chirag127 README, pinned items).
Audit trail
- Pre-cleanup fork count: 48
- Post-cleanup fork count: 5 (verified via
gh repo list chirag127 --fork) - API call success rate: 43/43 = 100%
- Spared per downstream-aware rule: 5/48 = 10.4%