Coauthor Cleaner

Remove unwanted AI coauthor trailers, generated-by comments, and attribution boilerplate from commits, staged changes, and pull requests.

Clean commits. Quiet bots.

Install

go install github.com/ericdahl-dev/coauthor-cleaner/cmd/coauthor-cleaner@latest

Or build from source:

CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -o coauthor-cleaner ./cmd/coauthor-cleaner

Quick start

coauthor-cleaner    # opens the TUI — scan, review, clean, and push

Lazygit-style split-panel TUI: findings list (left), live preview (right), status bar, contextual footer. Full workflow: toggle, clean, push (--force-with-lease when needed). Press ? for help.

Non-interactive: coauthor-cleaner fix --push

Protection Setup

Prevent AI attribution markers from being committed in the first place:

Locally (git hooks):

cp .coauthor-cleaner.protect.yml .coauthor-cleaner.yml
coauthor-cleaner hook install
# Commits with AI markers will now be blocked

In CI (GitHub Actions): The workflow .github/workflows/protect.yml automatically blocks PRs with AI markers. No setup needed—it runs on every PR.

Or add to your workflow:

- uses: ericdahl-dev/coauthor-cleaner/action.yml@v0.1.3
  with:
    mode: block   # Fail if any AI markers found

Commands

Command	Description
(default)	TUI — scan, preview, clean, push (review / tui alias)
fix	Non-interactive auto-clean (--push, --force, --check)
status	Repo check + findings + next steps
doctor	Verify hooks, config, gh, git repo
scan	Report markers (--file / --dir work outside git)
clean	Remove markers (--yes; --force if commit was pushed)
ci	PR range scan for GitHub Actions
pr scan / pr clean	Scan/clean current PR via gh
hook install	Install pre-commit + commit-msg hooks
config init	Create .coauthor-cleaner.yml
rules list	Show active detection rules

Configuration

.coauthor-cleaner.yml in your repo root. See .coauthor-cleaner.yml.example or .coauthor-cleaner.protect.yml (strict mode).

Hook modes:

• warn — Alert on findings; commit allowed (default)
• block — Fail commit if markers found; user must clean first
• clean — Auto-remove markers; commit proceeds

providers:
  claude: true
  chatgpt: true

behavior:
  hook_mode: block   # warn | block | clean

allowed_trailers:
  - "Co-authored-by: Your Name"

GitHub Actions

Use the reusable action from this repo:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0
- uses: actions/setup-go@v5
  with:
    go-version-file: go.mod
- uses: ericdahl-dev/coauthor-cleaner/action.yml@v0.1.3
  with:
    mode: block   # or warn

Set repository variable COAUTHOR_CLEANER_MODE to warn or block.

Development

go test ./...
CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -o coauthor-cleaner ./cmd/coauthor-cleaner

Release builds: goreleaser release --snapshot --clean