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Screens verified by walkthroughs/test_rm.py (and the walkthroughs above).

Reading dabs ls

ls draws what dabs owns as a tree: NODE · KIND · VOL/HELD/TMP (a dot per space that holds files) · STATE · INFO.
Everything on this machine draws in one flat tree with no heading, whichever local driver runs each box — the box’s own driver rides in its KIND cell (box (bwrap), box (apple)). A registered server earns a heading of its own, because knowing a server is there (and reachable, or not) is a finding. INFO is resolved per kind: a project’s source repo and a worktree’s checkout — the paths dabs cd prints for them — and, for a box, the dabs exec <instance> bash line that shells into it. A box has no working directory, so that cell is a command rather than a place; dabs cd <box> gives you its node dir on the host instead. For one node’s whole model — location, instance, the argv appended at boot, every space, the recipe snapshot — use dabs info <node>. Visibility follows life: ls shows only subtrees holding a running box or real files. Empty markers (a project record with nothing under it) hide behind a hint —
— and dabs ls --inactive lists only those instead. dabs rm <node> stops the box and removes its node and spaces, cascading to everything nested under it. Losing anything requires consent; without it, rm previews and exits nonzero. --dry previews and removes nothing. Four flags authorize four different losses — never collapsed into one: --keep stops the box but keeps its node record (when its spaces still hold something worth pointing at).

Ambiguity reaps nothing

A prefix matching several nodes is refused — with the count shown — until you opt in with --multiple:
--multiple is not --all: it scopes to what one name matched. The only all-of-a-kind sweeps are rm --clean-worktrees (reviewed worktrees) and rm --inactive (empty markers).

Sweeping the empty markers

Images

dabs prune reclaims built box images (they rebuild on the next dabs build); --dry lists them with sizes; --force removes even an image a live box still uses.