brew cleanup --scrub downloading a file it then removes

[twalker314]

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 6.0.10
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 76ca8d74e4a180badad438bf245ddfc740d68a8e
Last commit: 13 hours ago
Branch: stable
Core tap: N/A
Core cask tap: N/A
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_DOWNLOAD_CONCURRENCY: 32
HOMEBREW_EDITOR: emacs
HOMEBREW_FORBID_PACKAGES_FROM_PATHS: set
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 16
HOMEBREW_REQUIRE_TAP_TRUST: set
Homebrew Ruby: 4.0.5 => /opt/homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/4.0.5_1/bin/ruby
CPU: 16-core 64-bit arm_brava
Clang: 21.0.0 build 2100
Git: 2.50.1 => /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/git
Curl: 8.7.1 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 26.4.1-arm64
CLT: 26.6.0.0.1781586589
Xcode: 26.6
Metal Toolchain: 17.0 (17F109)
Rosetta 2: false

Output of brew doctor

Please note that these warnings are just used to help the Homebrew maintainers
with debugging if you file an issue. If everything you use Homebrew for is
working fine: please don't worry or file an issue; just ignore this. Thanks!

Warning: Unbrewed dylibs were found in /usr/local/lib.
If you didn't put them there on purpose they could cause problems when
building Homebrew formulae and may need to be deleted.

Unexpected dylibs:
  /usr/local/lib/libASAF.dylib

Description of issue

Probably not an issue per se (hence why posting in Discussions), more like I am curious about the behavior I observed.

I've noticed brew cleanup --scrub recently started removing api/internal/packages.arm64_tahoe.jws.json -- but this file is also downloaded by brew cleanup itself.

So when running it standalone (i.e. not preceded by e.g. brew update, upgrade, install etc.), brew clenup --scrub downloads api/internal/packages.arm64_tahoe.jws.json but then deletes it as part of what --scrub does.

While clearly not standard usage, say, running brew cleanup --scrub in a loop now downloads and removes this same file repeatedly, whereas it feels like running a cleanup command in a loop should perhaps be closer to a "no-op", so to speak?

[SMillerDev]

It downloads the file to know about the packages. If the same command removes it again the download will need to happen again. I don't think there is a way around this.

[twalker314]

If this specific file is required by cleanup, does removing it with --scrub really make sense?

Homebrew/brew#23022 suggests they may accumulate over time, from e.g. older OSes and whatnot; but I wonder if the "current" version, as needed by cleanup and other brew commands, should be removed by --scrub in addition to any older ones?

It doesn't seem like much of an issue indeed, it's just a little weird that it gets deleted by --scrub (at least from my perspective).

[p-linnane]

Thanks for the report. This will be fixed by Homebrew/brew#23111.