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Uninstalling Chaos Cypher

All-in-one Docker​

# stop the running container
docker compose down            # from packages/docker/ for the from-source path
# or: docker stop chaoscypher && docker rm chaoscypher   # for `docker run` installs

# find the persistent data volume (name varies by install path)
docker volume ls | grep chaoscypher

# then remove the one you found, e.g.:
#   chaoscypher_app-data            (make docker-up / compose from packages/docker)
#   chaoscypher-data                (published-image `docker run -v chaoscypher-data:/data`)
#   chaoscypher_chaoscypher-data    (published-image Compose snippet)
docker volume rm <name>

# remove the image (name varies by install path)
docker image ls | grep chaoscypher

# then remove the one you found, e.g.:
#   ghcr.io/chaoscypherinc/chaoscypher    (published-image installs)
#   chaoscypher-chaoscypher               (make docker-up / compose from packages/docker)
#   chaoscypher:local                     (manual `docker build` from the production guide)
docker rmi <name>

That removes everything: the SQLite database, uploaded sources, embeddings, chats, API keys, and login credentials.

Multi-container dev​

make docker-down
docker compose -f packages/docker/multi-container/docker-compose.dev.yml down --volumes

down --volumes removes the dev stack's app-data and valkey-data named volumes — there is no host-side data directory to delete.

CLI install (pip install chaoscypher-cli)​

The CLI stores its files in platform-standard (XDG / platformdirs) locations — not ~/.chaoscypher/. Engine config (settings.yaml, including API keys) lives in the data dir; auth/login state (auth.json) lives in the config dir.

pip uninstall chaoscypher-cli

# Data dir (settings.yaml with API keys, databases, downloaded models)
rm -rf ~/.local/share/chaoscypher/                   # Linux
rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/chaoscypher/"  # macOS
# Windows: rmdir /s "%LOCALAPPDATA%\chaoscypher"

# Config dir (auth.json login state)
rm -rf ~/.config/chaoscypher/                        # Linux
rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/chaoscypher/"  # macOS (same as data)
# Windows: rmdir /s "%LOCALAPPDATA%\chaoscypher"   (same directory as the data dir — already covered above)

# Cache dir
rm -rf ~/.cache/chaoscypher/                         # Linux
rm -rf "~/Library/Caches/chaoscypher/"               # macOS
# Windows: rmdir /s "%LOCALAPPDATA%\chaoscypher\Cache"

CHAOSCYPHER_CONFIG_DIR can override the config location, so check chaoscypher doctor if you're unsure where your install resolved its paths.

Verify nothing left running​

docker ps | grep chaoscypher    # should print nothing

Data deletion checklist​

  • Persistent volume removed (docker volume ls | grep chaoscypher — Docker installs, including the multi-container dev stack, keep all data in named volumes)
  • Local data dir removed (the platform data/config/cache dirs above for CLI installs — e.g. ~/.local/share/chaoscypher on Linux, %LOCALAPPDATA%\chaoscypher on Windows)
  • Backups deleted if you no longer need them (backups/*.db — API backups app_*.db plus migration auto-backups databases/<db>/backups/pre-*.db)
  • Exported .ccx knowledge packages deleted if you saved any outside the data dir
  • LLM provider API keys revoked at the source (OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini consoles) if you'll never reinstall

See the self-hosted threat model for an inventory of what's stored locally.