Delink GitHub

Use this skill when the user explicitly wants to detach, isolate, rename, clean, reinitialize, delink, disconnect, unpublish, or start fresh Git history for a repository copied from another GitHub project.

Safety Rule

This workflow is destructive. Before running reset, confirm the user wants to permanently remove existing root .git, root .github, root LICENSE* or COPYING* files, inherited repository metadata, and stale project references. If the user already gave explicit approval in the current request, proceed with the guarded script command.

Workflow

1. Identify the project root. Prefer an explicit absolute path or positional target.
2. Preview the destructive changes:

python <skill-dir>/scripts/delink.py plan <project-root> --rename-from old-project --rename-to new-project

3. If the plan matches the request, run the reset:

python <skill-dir>/scripts/delink.py reset <project-root> --rename-from old-project --rename-to new-project --yes

4. Verify the result:

git -C <final-project-root> remote -v
git -C <final-project-root> branch --show-current
git -C <final-project-root> log --oneline --max-count=3

The remote list should be empty, the branch should be main unless changed with --branch, and the new history should contain only the new local initial commit unless --no-commit was used.

Script

Use scripts/delink.py for deterministic operations.

Commands:

• plan: print removals, rename variants, license cleanup, metadata rewrites, directory renames, and Git commands that would run.
• reset: remove root GitHub linkage, purge inherited metadata, optionally rename project references/directories, initialize Git, stage all files, and create an initial commit.

Target path:

• Positional target: python delink.py plan C:\path\to\project
• Backward-compatible flag: python delink.py plan --target C:\path\to\project
• Defaults to the current working directory when no target is supplied.

Useful options:

• --rename-from <old>: old project name to replace across source, config, and docs.
• --rename-to <new>: new project name and repository slug source.
• --branch <name>: initial branch name. Defaults to main.
• --message <text>: initial commit message. Defaults to initial commit.
• --no-commit: initialize and stage files without creating a commit.
• --yes: required for reset.

Rename And Isolation Behavior

When --rename-from and --rename-to are provided, the script replaces dynamic casing variants:

• kebab-case: old-project to new-project
• snake_case: old_project to new_project
• PascalCase: OldProject to NewProject
• camelCase: oldProject to newProject
• UPPER_CASE: OLD_PROJECT to NEW_PROJECT
• uppercase compact: OLDPROJECT to NEWPROJECT
• lowercase compact: oldproject to newproject
• spaced words: old project to new project

The script skips lockfiles, dependency folders, generated folders, and binary assets to avoid breaking dependency resolution or media files.

It renames matching internal directories, including Python package folders such as old_project, and renames the root folder when its name matches a derived old-name variant.

License And Metadata Cleanup

The script removes root LICENSE* and COPYING* files. It also strips common inherited license metadata from README.md, setup.py, setup.cfg, pyproject.toml, and package.json, including:

• license badges
• README license sections
• license classifiers
• license, license_files, and similar metadata lines
• package.json license fields

It rewrites contact metadata to the local Git identity, falling back to Souvik Dey <imsovikde@gmail.com>, and redirects GitHub repository URLs to:

https://github.com/imsovikde/<new-repo-name>

Guardrails

• Do not run this on a parent directory, home directory, drive root, or filesystem root.
• Do not run this to remove someone else's history unless the user owns the repository or has confirmed authority.
• Do not preserve GitHub Actions, issue templates, or pull request templates; the root .github directory is intentionally removed.
• Do not silently process only one rename option; --rename-from and --rename-to must be provided together.
• If git commit fails because identity is missing, configure git config user.name and git config user.email, then rerun or commit manually.

Verification

When this skill changes, run:

python skills/delink-github/scripts/test_delink.py
npm run validate:skills
npm test
npm run build
node bin/souvik-skills.cjs install delink-github --force

After installing locally, restart Codex so the updated skill metadata loads.