Delete S3 objects older than N days from a bucket prefix. Configurable retention; dry-run mode prints what would be deleted without removing. Daily summary of bytes freed.

Provided free and as is, without warranty of any kind — including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and the accuracy or completeness of any result. See the licence. You are responsible for checking what this produces before relying on it.

`s3-cleanup`

Delete S3 objects older than N days from a bucket prefix. Daily summary of bytes freed. Dry-run mode for the first few runs so you can preview without accidentally nuking anything.

Use case

S3 buckets accumulate. Build artifacts, log dumps, temp files, expired exports — they sit there forever and quietly cost money. S3 Lifecycle Policies handle this in theory, but they're a pain to author for one-off cases and they apply silently with no notification. This workflow runs daily, deletes by age, and emails you a one-line summary so you know it ran and what it cleaned.

This is a InTouch workflow, not a skill — pure plumbing, no AI value.

Setup

Create an aws credential with s3:ListBucket, s3:DeleteObject, and s3:GetObject on the target bucket
Edit workflow.iml:
BUCKET — your bucket name (no s3:// prefix)
PREFIX — path inside the bucket (trailing slash matters; empty string = whole bucket)
RETENTION_DAYS — anything older than this gets deleted
DRY_RUN — 1 for first runs (preview only), then flip to 0 once you trust it
Schedule daily (or weekly for low-churn buckets)

Pipeline

cleanup — runtimeenv (bash + AWS CLI) — lists, filters by LastModified, deletes (or previews)
notify — message — sends the summary

Safety notes

Always start with DRY_RUN=1 for at least one run, ideally a week. Verify the WOULD DELETE list matches your expectations
The CLI uses your credential's IAM permissions — scope the policy tight (s3:DeleteObject only on the specific bucket+prefix)
If you accidentally delete the wrong objects and the bucket has versioning, recovery is aws s3api restore-object — confirm versioning is enabled before relying on it as a safety net
This workflow does NOT delete object versions or delete markers — for full purge of a versioned bucket, you need a different cleanup pattern

Customization

Multiple prefixes — duplicate the cleanup task per prefix
Per-prefix retention — different RETENTION_DAYS per task
Pattern filter — add a --query clause that filters on Key as well as LastModified, e.g. Contents[?LastModified<=\...` && contains(Key, '.tmp')]`
Cross-account — assume a role first via aws sts assume-role in the script

Source

See workflow.iml.