Optimizing System Resources

Comprehensive system cleanup automation for developer workstations. macOS-first with cross-platform notes.

When to Use

• System feels sluggish or unresponsive
• Before starting memory-intensive work (builds, video editing, VMs)
• End of work session cleanup
• When top shows high memory pressure or swap usage
• Too many browser tabs accumulated

Quick Commands

# Check memory pressure
vm_stat | head -10

# Top memory consumers (macOS)
ps aux -m | head -20 | awk '{printf "%-6s %5s%% %s\n", $2, $4, $11}'

# Count node processes
pgrep -fl "node" | wc -l

# Purge inactive memory (requires sudo)
sudo purge

Workflow

Phase 1: Assessment

# 1. Check memory status
top -l 1 -s 0 | head -12

# 2. List visible apps
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every process whose background only is false'

# 3. Count browser tabs
osascript -e 'tell application "Brave Browser" to return (count of tabs of every window)'
osascript -e 'tell application "Google Chrome" to return (count of tabs of every window)'

Phase 2: Browser Cleanup

Close stale tabs (empty tabs, old searches, completed tasks):

tell application "Brave Browser"
    set closedCount to 0
    repeat with w in windows
        set tabList to tabs of w
        repeat with t in tabList
            set tabURL to URL of t
            -- Close empty and stale tabs
            if tabURL contains "chrome://newtab" or tabURL contains "google.com/search" then
                close t
                set closedCount to closedCount + 1
            end if
        end repeat
    end repeat
    return "Closed " & closedCount & " tabs"
end tell

Stale tab patterns (safe to close):

Keep patterns (do not auto-close):

Phase 3: Application Cleanup

Close idle applications safely:

-- Close app only if no open documents
tell application "Preview"
    if (count of documents) = 0 then quit
end tell

tell application "Microsoft Word"
    if (count of documents) = 0 then quit
end tell

Safe to close (typically idle):

• ChatGPT (when using Claude)
• Preview (if no documents)
• Adobe Acrobat (if no documents)
• Calculator
• Stickies

Never auto-close:

• IDEs with unsaved work
• Terminal sessions
• Database clients
• Current browser

Phase 4: IDE Window Audit

Check open IDE windows/workspaces:

# Antigravity/VS Code windows
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every window of process "Antigravity"'

# Count Electron processes (IDEs)
pgrep -fl "Electron" | wc -l

Recommend closing workspaces not touched in 24+ hours.

Phase 5: Process Cleanup

# Find lingering node processes
pgrep -fl "node" | grep -v "claude-code\|Antigravity"

# Find orphan dev servers
lsof -i -P | grep LISTEN | grep -E "(node|next|vite)"

# Kill specific process (with confirmation)
kill -15 <PID>

Integrates with /node-clean skill for comprehensive Node.js cleanup.

Phase 6: Memory Optimization

# Check current memory state
memory_pressure 2>/dev/null || vm_stat | head -10

# Purge inactive memory (requires sudo password)
sudo purge

# After purge, verify improvement
vm_stat | grep "Pages free"

Platform Notes

macOS (Primary)

• Uses osascript for application control
• purge command requires sudo
• memory_pressure shows detailed status

Linux

# Clear page cache (requires root)
sync && echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

# Check memory
free -h

# List open files by process
lsof -c chrome | wc -l

Windows (WSL)

# Close process
Stop-Process -Name "chrome" -Force

# Check memory
Get-Process | Sort-Object WorkingSet -Descending | Select-Object -First 10

Safety Rules

1. NEVER close apps with unsaved documents - always check document count first
2. NEVER kill claude-code or terminal processes - breaks current session
3. NEVER close localhost tabs without asking - may be active dev work
4. ALWAYS confirm before closing IDEs - workspaces may have state
5. Preserve browser tabs with form data - user may lose input

Example Session

User: clean up resources

CIPS:
Assessment:
- Memory: 15G used, 94M free (pressure: HIGH)
- Brave tabs: 52 open
- Apps: 20 visible processes
- Node: 52 processes

Actions taken:
- Closed 10 stale Brave tabs (newtab, searches)
- Closed ChatGPT app
- Closed Preview (no documents)
- Skipped Word (has open documents)

Recommendations:
- Close unused Antigravity windows (4 detected)
- Run `sudo purge` to clear memory cache
- Consider closing Spotify if not listening

Memory freed: ~800MB estimated

Token Budget

Changelog

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