README.md

@@ -278,15 +278,29 @@ the obvious order, because a snapshot is hardlinked to everything cloned from
 it, so removing one frees almost no real bytes while costing every future PR
 its warm start.
 
-**A branch is dead in two ways, and the second is the one that reclaims
+**A branch is dead in two ways, and neither signal makes the other
-anything here.** Gitea keeps a PR's branch after the merge unless the repo
+redundant.** The first is that the branch is gone from origin. The second is
-opts into delete-on-merge, so `git ls-remote` reports merged branches forever
-and "gone from origin" fires for almost nothing. The second signal is
 ancestry: a branch still on origin whose tip is an ancestor of a protected
 branch's tip holds no commit that branch does not, so its cache will never be
-read again and goes in the same pass. On zemyna's volume that is the
+read again and goes in the same pass.
-difference between reclaiming nothing and reclaiming a 40 GB directory per
+
-merged PR (gitdan-actions#20).
+**Turn delete-on-merge on** (`default_delete_branch_after_merge`, per repo) —
+it is the setting this scheme is cheapest under, because a deleted branch is
+decidable from `ls-remote` alone, with no checkout, no objects and no walk.
+The ancestry signal is what covers the rest, and the rest is not a corner:
+
+- **Every branch merged before the setting was turned on.** They stay on
+  origin forever; nothing retroactively deletes them. zemyna carried 48 of
+  them at the time the setting was enabled, and ancestry is the only thing
+  that reclaims a cache dir belonging to any of them.
+- **Every merge the deletion declines or fails.** Gitea's delete is
+  best-effort and silent: it declines for a protected branch and for one
+  another open PR still uses, and an API merge that omits the flag — which
+  `tea pulls merge` does — simply never asks.
+- **Repos that have not enabled it**, which is the default.
+
+That is the difference between reclaiming nothing and reclaiming a 40 GB
+directory per merged PR on a full volume (issue 20).
 
 Ancestry is answered from the commits in the job's own checkout, so it is only
 answered where they are there to answer it — and "cannot tell" is never folded

scripts/prune-cache-selftest.sh

@@ -46,10 +46,10 @@
 #      empty a tree its owner may still restore under a live cache name. Its
 #      fixture is an OLD directory renamed a moment ago — production's shape,
 #      and what lets it tell the two timestamps apart.
-#  15. A MERGED-BUT-UNDELETED BRANCH IS DEAD TOO. This forge keeps branches
+#  15. A MERGED-BUT-UNDELETED BRANCH IS DEAD TOO. A branch the forge did not
-#      after merge, so `ls-remote` reports them forever and scenario 1's
+#      delete at merge stays on `ls-remote` forever, so scenario 1's signal
-#      signal never fires for them — which is how three 40 GB caches sat on a
+#      never fires for it — which is how three 40 GB caches sat on a full
-#      full volume until somebody removed them by hand (gitdan-actions#20). A
+#      volume until somebody removed them by hand (gitdan-actions#20). A
 #      branch whose tip is an ancestor of a protected branch's tip is pruned
 #      like a deleted one; an unmerged branch beside it is not.
 #  16. AND "CANNOT TELL" IS STILL NOT DEATH, at both granularities: a branch
@@ -314,7 +314,7 @@ assert_log "may still be evicting it" "the deferral gives its actual reason"
 
 echo
 echo "=== 15: a merged-but-undeleted branch is dead too ==="
-# This forge keeps a PR's branch after the merge, so `ls-remote` reports it
+# A branch the forge did not delete at merge, which `ls-remote` then reports
 # forever. Built the way that happens: a branch merged into dev with a merge
 # commit, still pushed, beside one branched at the same point and NOT merged.
 git="git -c user.email=t@t -c user.name=t -c commit.gpgsign=false"

scripts/prune-cache.sh

@@ -28,8 +28,9 @@
 #      removed UNCONDITIONALLY, not gated on free space. A directory for a
 #      branch nothing will build again is pure loss; waiting for disk pressure
 #      to notice means paying for it until then. Two signals make a branch
-#      dead, and the second exists because the first alone is inert on a forge
+#      dead, and the second exists because the first alone is inert wherever
-#      that keeps branches after merge (gitdan-actions#20):
+#      a merged branch stays on origin — the default, and still the outcome
+#      whenever delete-on-merge declines or is not asked (gitdan-actions#20):
 #
 #        DELETED — the branch is no longer on origin at all.
 #        MERGED  — the branch is still on origin, but its tip is an ancestor
@@ -434,8 +435,11 @@ fi
 #
 # True when the branch this directory belongs to is still on origin but every
 # commit it holds is already on a protected branch — a merged PR whose branch
-# the forge did not delete, which is the case zemyna hits on every merge and
+# the forge did not delete, which the deleted-branch signal above can never
-# which the deleted-branch signal above can never see.
+# see. Enabling delete-on-merge narrows this to the branches merged before it
+# was enabled, the ones its deletion declines (protected, or used by another
+# open PR), and the merges that never ask (an API merge without the flag);
+# see README's eviction section.
 #
 # Memoised per tip because target-<key> and snapshot-<key> share one branch,
 # and because the "cannot tell" warning belongs to the branch rather than to