Flyweight Directory consuming too much space

[Obiageli Adegbite]

Hello,

I am running into an issue where the flyweight is consuming 99% of the gocd server space. During my investigation. It appears some of the flyweight is being replicated multiple times. 

My understanding of the flyweight is not clear, perhaps you can shed light on what the flyweight is actually doing. My understanding of the flyweight is that GoCD should clone the material (in my case git) repository the first time, and from then on, it should just poll for changes (the size shouldn't increase much). It should also have only one directory per material.

In my case I am using the gocd-git-path-material-plugin alot which allows me to use point to different paths, I also point to different branches. I am not sure if based on every different path or branch we have a unique flyweight. Can you please clarify and also share suggestions

[Sriram Narayanan]

Per Ketan’s advice in the past, one can clear the files within the flyweight directory.

See 

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/go-cd/CAMUPJd4HFuj%2BPnwX_jV-ib3tj2rwRK2a%2BBXJta6czMM22jYfmw%40mail.gmail.com

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[Obiageli Adegbite]

Hello Sriram,

Thank you for your response, I already read that thread. This is different in tha even after pruning the flyweight it regenerated within minutes. My materials are set to auto update so that doesn't help. My question really is does GoCD create a new flyweight for the same material if:

1. The same material is defined differently in different pipelines.

2. Even small changes like:

   • Different material_name

   • Different branch (e.g., main vs release)

   • Different path: in Git plugin

   • Different clone settings (shallow_clone, auto_update)

   • Even different casing in URLs (GitHub.com vs github.com)

[Obiageli Adegbite]

Thank you for responding, I read that and delete the flyweight but it simple refills just as quickly as you delete them. My pipeline is set to auto update = true an the space gets eaten up just as quickly

On Tuesday, 8 July 2025 at 12:26:07 UTC-4 Sriram Narayanan wrote:

[Chad Wilson]

Removing the flyweight directory will only save space if you have a large number of unused/deleted materials since the last time you cleaned up the folder. In other words it will effectively only reclaim 

You need sufficient space for an entire git clone for every material that is listed in the Materials page. If you are using the git path material plugin with many different paths, and your repositories are very large, you may need a lot of space. (GoCD does not yet support blobless clones on the server as would possibly help in this situation)

I would review your repository sizes and materials to assess how much space you require given these constraints.

-Chad

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/go-cd/025a4ee9-31a4-4ccb-88f3-cbe2487eb9f2n%40googlegroups.com.

[Chad Wilson]

...effectively only reclaim a marginal amount of space if you don't regular delete pipelines/materials. (Oops...)