Data and cleanup experimental

By default, mise keeps each project's daemon state and preset data outside the project, under $MISE_STATE_DIR/daemons/, and never deletes it on its own. Use mise daemons ls --json to find it and mise daemons prune to remove what deleted projects and worktrees left behind.

Experimental

Daemons are experimental. Enable them with experimental = true under [settings]; see Requirements.

Where data lives

mise writes each project's generated pitchfork config to $MISE_STATE_DIR/daemons/<project-hash>/ and registers it with pitchfork. See Directories for where $MISE_STATE_DIR is. By default, nothing is written into the project tree. A registered file overrides an ordinary pitchfork definition with the same daemon ID. To change a daemon, edit its [daemons] declaration, not the generated file.

A preset keeps its data in data/<daemon-name>/ beside the generated config. The data survives version request changes and the removal of the daemon's declaration. A new major version needs an explicit migration or reset: incompatible data fails before the daemon starts. Use the database's own migration tools to keep data across an incompatible upgrade.

If first-time initialization fails, mise moves no data into place, so the next start initializes again from scratch.

Shared server providers keep their data separately, in $MISE_STATE_DIR/daemon-providers/<name>/data.

Keep data in the checkout

To keep a preset's data inside each checkout, set data_dir:

[daemons.postgres]
preset = "postgres"
version = "18"
data_dir = ".data/postgres"

A relative path resolves from the declaring project's root; an absolute path also works, and ~/ expands to your home directory. Add /.data/ to .gitignore. Each worktree then owns its data, while runtime state and the generated config stay in mise's state directory. Do not point two running instances at the same directory.

Changing data_dir does not move existing data. Stop the daemon before you copy or migrate its data, and keep a backup until the new location works. mise daemons prune leaves data outside the state directory alone, but removing a worktree or cleaning ignored files deletes data stored inside it.

Find daemon data

Use mise daemons ls --json to locate a project's daemon data and check its size before you delete the project or a worktree. Each daemon row includes:

Field	Value
root	Project directory
data_dir	Resolved preset data directory (null for custom commands and provider consumers)
state_dir	Directory with the generated config, state, and default data
data_size	Total size of default data under state_dir in bytes (excludes data_dir paths you set)
data_size_human	The same size formatted for display

Except for data_dir, these fields describe the whole project, so daemons of the same project report the same values.

Reset a database

Stop the daemon, find its data directory, remove that directory, and start the daemon again. The next start initializes fresh data. Back up anything you want to keep first.

mise daemons stop db
mise daemons ls --json | jq -r '.[] | select(.name == "db") | .data_dir'
rm -rf <that directory>
mise daemons start db

Remove the directory itself, not only its contents: mise refuses to start a preset whose data directory exists without the marker it writes during initialization.

This applies to a daemon that runs its own preset. A daemon that uses a shared server provider has no data directory of its own, so its data_dir is null. Drop its database with the server's own client instead. Never remove the provider's data directory to reset one checkout: it holds every checkout's database.

Clean up deleted projects

Each project, including each linked Git worktree, has its own daemon state and data. Deleting the project directory, for example with git worktree remove, leaves that data on disk and its daemons registered with pitchfork.

Use mise daemons prune to clean up after deleted projects. It scans all project state under $MISE_STATE_DIR/daemons/:

# Preview the projects, state directories, and sizes
mise daemons prune --dry-run

# Review the list and confirm removal
mise daemons prune

Pruning stops the affected daemons, unregisters their generated config, and deletes their config, state, and data. The confirmation prompt shows how many state directories it removes and their total size, and it defaults to no. Removal cannot be undone, so back up any data you want to keep.

State for projects that still exist is kept, even if they no longer declare any daemons. mise daemons start prints a reminder when it finds state that prune would remove; it does not delete anything itself.

Non-interactive cleanup

Pass the global --yes flag to confirm ordinary removals without a prompt:

mise daemons prune --yes

If a missing project could be on an unmounted volume or behind a deleted symlink, mise asks about it separately, and --yes skips it. Run without --yes to review these entries, and confirm only if the project itself was deleted. This extra check applies when a parent directory was deleted, an ancestor is empty or unreadable, the project is rooted at a mount point such as /Volumes/Disk, or the recorded path differs from the one used to create the state directory.

When state is kept

Pruning requires pitchfork. mise keeps a project's state, and says why, when it cannot read the project path or state file, take the project lock, confirm that the daemons have stopped, or unregister their config. It also keeps state if the project directory reappears before removal.

A database's PID or lock file can also block removal. A PID file naming a live process blocks pruning; a stale PID does not. An unreadable marker, or one without a valid PID, counts as possibly active. Resolve the reported condition and run mise daemons prune again.