Jekyll Build Lacks Auto-Clean Feature

Jekyll Build Lacks Auto-Clean Feature | Generated by AI

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Jekyll itself doesn’t have a --replace or --refresh flag. Each jekyll build run will write (or overwrite) the generated files into the --destination folder you specify, but it doesn’t automatically remove old files that no longer exist in your source. That means stale files can remain.

If you want a clean build output, you need to clear the destination directory yourself before running jekyll build. Two common approaches:

1. Manual clean-up in your script Before calling jekyll build, wipe the destination directory:

import shutil

def run_jekyll(destination: str, extra_args: list[str]) -> int:
    # Remove old files
    dest_path = Path(destination)
    if dest_path.exists():
        shutil.rmtree(dest_path)

    command = [
        "jekyll",
        "build",
        "--destination",
        destination,
        *extra_args,
    ]
    completed = subprocess.run(command, check=False)
    return completed.returncode

2. Use Jekyll’s own _site If you let Jekyll use the default _site under your project root (instead of a custom --destination), jekyll clean is available to purge the output before rebuilding:

jekyll clean && jekyll build

But jekyll clean only knows about _site, not a custom folder.

So:

There is no --replace built-in.
If you’re using a custom destination (like in your script), you should explicitly delete it before building if you want a fresh output.

Would you like me to adjust your script so it has a --clean option (like jekyll clean) that automatically clears the destination before building?

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openai/gpt-5

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