Uninstall Kodelyth ECC

Complete removal of Kodelyth ECC from your system. Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Interactive menu or direct CLI. Dry-run mode previews changes without touching anything.

Interactive uninstall (recommended)

kodelythecc

In the menu, select Uninstall ECC completely. A picker opens:

Confirm
 
 ▸ Uninstall — remove EVERYTHING including memory
   Uninstall — keep ~/.kodelythecc/ memory + ledgers
   Dry run — show what would be removed, change nothing
   Cancel

Pick the level of cleanup you want. Confirmation happens before anything is deleted.

Non-interactive uninstall

# Preview what would be removed — safe
kodelythecc uninstall --dry-run
 
# Full cleanup, remove memory too
kodelythecc uninstall --yes
 
# Cleanup, keep ~/.kodelythecc/ memory + ledgers
kodelythecc uninstall --yes --keep-memory
 
# Finally remove the npm package itself
npm uninstall -g kodelyth-ecc

What gets removed

The uninstall routine runs in this order:

1. ECC-shipped files in ~/.claude/

Only files that ECC installed. User-authored siblings in the same directories are preserved — the routine checks the ECC package's own agents/skills/commands/hooks/rules/scripts/ directories to know which specific files it owns.

Live dry-run count on a fresh install:

After each subdir is cleaned, any now-empty ECC-owned subdirectories are removed. Directories with user-authored files remain.

2. MCP server entries

Removes the kodelyth-ecc entry from:

• ~/.claude.json (Claude Code user-level MCP)
• ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS)
• %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Windows)
• ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Linux)

Other MCP entries (including codebase-memory-mcp) are preserved.

3. RTK integration

Runs the RTK team's own uninstall command:

rtk init -g --uninstall

This removes the PreToolUse hook from Claude Code's settings.json and cleans up the RTK.md file. The rtk binary itself is not removed — to remove it entirely:

brew uninstall rtk    # if you installed via brew
# or delete ~/.local/bin/rtk if you installed via curl

4. codebase-memory-mcp registration

Runs their own uninstall:

codebase-memory-mcp uninstall

This removes agent configs (MCP entries, instruction files, pre-tool hooks) across every installed agent. The binary and SQLite databases in ~/.cache/codebase-memory-mcp/ stay unless you explicitly remove them.

5. ~/.kodelythecc/ (memory, ledgers, cache)

Removed unless --keep-memory or menu option 2 is chosen.

Contents removed:

~/.kodelythecc/
├── memory/           # BM25 memory store
├── terse/            # Terse mode ledger
├── evolve/           # Evolve reuse + routing-miss signals
├── update-check.json # 24h npm cache
└── dashboard-daemon.pid  # If daemon was running

6. Legacy migration backups

Any .kodelyth.backup-YYYY-MM-DD directories in your home (created by the 1.8.6 memory-path migration) are removed.

What does NOT get removed

• Your npm package — run npm uninstall -g kodelyth-ecc separately
• Any user-authored files you added to ~/.claude/agents/, ~/.claude/skills/, ~/.claude/commands/, etc. — only ECC-shipped files are removed
• The rtk binary — remove with brew uninstall rtk or delete ~/.local/bin/rtk yourself
• The codebase-memory-mcp binary — remove with rm ~/.local/bin/codebase-memory-mcp yourself
• Its cache database — remove with rm -rf ~/.cache/codebase-memory-mcp/ yourself
• Anything you customized in your AI tool's settings that wasn't added by ECC

Dry run — verify before you commit

kodelythecc uninstall --dry-run

Sample output on this maintainer's Mac:

Removing ECC-installed files from ~/.claude/ …
  [dry-run] would remove 70 agents files from /Users/you/.claude/agents
  [dry-run] would remove 301 skills files from /Users/you/.claude/skills
  [dry-run] would remove 99 commands files from /Users/you/.claude/commands
  [dry-run] would remove 12 hooks files from /Users/you/.claude/hooks
  [dry-run] would remove 104 rules files from /Users/you/.claude/rules
  [dry-run] would remove 173 scripts files from /Users/you/.claude/scripts
  [dry-run] would unregister kodelyth-ecc MCP server from Claude Code + Desktop
Unwiring RTK integrations …
Uninstalling codebase-memory-mcp agent configs …
[dry-run] would remove ~/.kodelythecc/ (memory, ledgers, cache) …
  [dry-run] would remove backup /Users/you/.kodelyth.backup-2026-07-03
 
Removed 0 files across 3 subsystems.
(dry-run — no changes made)

Nothing is touched in dry-run mode.

Fresh reinstall after uninstall

After a full uninstall, reinstalling is a single command:

npm i -g kodelyth-ecc
kodelythecc --target claude-code --codebase-graph

The installer detects the missing state and rebuilds everything cleanly.

Programmatic use

The uninstall module is exported:

const { plan, run } = require('kodelyth-ecc/scripts/cli/uninstall.js');
 
// See what would be removed
const p = plan(process.env.PWD);
console.log(p.shipped);   // { agents: 70, skills: 301, commands: 99, ... }
console.log(p.dests);     // { agents: '~/.claude/agents', ... }
 
// Actually run
const result = run({
  log: console.log,
  dryRun: false,
  keepMemory: false,
});
console.log(result);
// → { removed_files, dirs_removed, subsystems_uninstalled, errors }

Troubleshooting

"Permission denied" on some files → Some files may be locked by a running AI tool. Fully quit Claude Code / Cursor / Windsurf first, then re-run.

"Cannot find rtk" → RTK was never installed. Safe to ignore, rtk uninstall step is skipped gracefully.

"Cannot find codebase-memory-mcp" → codebase-graph was never installed. Same — skipped gracefully.

Left over files after uninstall → Anything under ~/.claude/agents/ or ~/.claude/skills/ that wasn't in ECC's own package directory is treated as user-authored and preserved. If you added custom agents, they're kept.

npm uninstall -g kodelyth-ecc fails → Try sudo npm uninstall -g kodelyth-ecc if npm was installed system-wide.

Source

• scripts/cli/uninstall.js — the module
• scripts/mcp/register-self.js — MCP-entry cleanup helper
• bin/kodelyth-ecc.js — the uninstall subcommand handler

See also

• Getting Started — the reverse operation
• Interactive CLI — where the menu option lives
• MCP Server — MCP entry registration details