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Using nem
Maintenance

Maintenance

Everything nem installs lives under NEM_HOME, so keeping a machine tidy is three commands: nem clean to reclaim space, nem self update to update nem, and nem deactivate plus one rm to remove it.

Reclaiming disk space

Every package nem installs stays under NEM_HOME until you remove it. A bare nem clean removes only provable garbage — leaked build staging, leaked downloads, partial installs, leftover test installs — and never prompts, so it is safe to run unattended:

nem clean                    # provable garbage only, no prompt
nem clean --dry-run          # print the plan without deleting anything
nem clean --unused 30d       # also versions nem has not resolved in 30 days
nem clean --all              # every installed package version (asks first)

--unused measures the last time nem itself used a version — nem env on a directory change, nem exec, an install, or nem catalog build — not the last time a shell ran the binary. A nem sync that installs nothing refreshes nothing. A shell that has not changed directories in a while can still have a version on its PATH that --unused would evict. Whatever nem clean removes, a project gets back with nem sync.

--grace (default 1h) leaves recently touched reclaimable paths alone, and --yes skips the confirmation that --unused and --all ask for. The NEM_HOME reference lists what counts as garbage tier by tier.

Updating nem

nem updates itself in place:

nem self update                     # latest build on the current channel
nem self update --check             # report whether an update exists
nem self update --version v0.3.0    # a specific release
nem self update --version unstable  # the rolling build from main

A stable build updates to the latest release; an unstable build follows main. --version stable switches an unstable build back to releases. The download is verified against its checksum before the running binary is replaced. The install script with NEM_VERSION is the alternative when a build did not come from a release.

Uninstalling

Everything nem installs lives under NEM_HOME (default ~/.nem). Outside it, nem writes only the hook block in your shell's startup file, the binary itself on nem self update, and a project's nem.toml and nem.lock.

nem deactivate               # remove the hook block from .zshrc or .bashrc
exec $SHELL                  # restart the shell without the hook
rm -rf ~/.nem                # every package, catalog, and the global manifest
rm ~/.local/bin/nem          # the binary (or wherever NEM_INSTALL_DIR put it)

Projects keep their nem.toml and nem.lock; they are plain files in the repository and harmless without nem. NEM_INSTALL_DIR and the other install-time variables are listed under Configuration variables.

Related

Coding agents