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The janitor manages cleanup of virtual mode artifacts: expired VDEs, old checkpoints, unreferenced physical versions, stale state backups, and expired locks. All cleanup runs through sqb janitor with preview and confirmation.

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Physical version protection

Physical version relations are never deleted while referenced by:
  • Any active (non-detached) VDE’s current refs
  • Any retained checkpoint’s refs
The janitor resolves the complete set of protected physical relations before considering any deletions.

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Checkpoint retention

Checkpoints are retained according to [janitor] max_checkpoints (default: 20): 
[janitor]
max_checkpoints = 20
Values below 1 are rejected. Checkpoint creation never prunes history - pruning is janitor-only, behind preview and confirmation. When old checkpoints are pruned, physical versions that were protected only by those checkpoints become eligible for deletion in the same janitor run (if not protected by active VDE refs or remaining checkpoints).

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Expired VDE cleanup

Non-active, non-detached VDEs older than [janitor] retention_days are pruned: 
[janitor]
retention_days = 30
Active/default VDEs are always protected. This catches abandoned PR preview VDEs that were never promoted or cleaned up.

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Detached VDE cleanup

Detached VDEs (created by sqb state detach) are eligible for cleanup after retention_days:
  • retention_days = 0 makes them eligible immediately
  • Refs, function refs, and VDE row are deleted
  • Checkpoint rows remain governed by checkpoint retention
  • Physical versions newly unprotected by removed refs can be deleted in the same run
Active VDE refs continue to protect physical versions even when detached refs are pruned.

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State cleanup

The janitor also prunes state-only artifacts:
  • Migration backups: old backup schemas are deleted, but the latest backup is always preserved
  • Expired locks: lock rows with expires_at in the past are deleted; active locks are never touched

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Execution order

The janitor drops warehouse physical versions before pruning state rows. If a warehouse drop fails, the corresponding state refs are preserved so the janitor can retry on the next run.

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Usage

# Preview what would be cleaned
sqb janitor

# Execute cleanup with confirmation
sqb janitor --auto-approve
The janitor shows a preview of all candidates (checkpoints, VDEs, physical versions, state items) and requires confirmation before executing any destructive operations.