Scaffold Cleanup

wheels destroy is the reverse of wheels generate. You hand it the same name you handed generate and it removes the files that were written. wheels d is a one-letter alias for the same command.

You’ll use this for:

• Undoing a scaffold you ran against the wrong name and want to redo.
• Removing an individual generated artifact — a model, a controller, a view directory — without touching the rest of the project.
• Cleaning up half-generated work when a generate run didn’t match what you meant to type.

Overview

destroy mirrors a subset of the generate surface. For each supported type it removes the files the matching generator wrote, drops the corresponding .resources() line from config/routes.cfm when relevant, and stamps out a remove_<table>_table migration for types that own a schema. Files that weren’t generated — or that have already been removed — are reported as skipped, not errors.

wheels d is the same function under a shorter name. Every example on this page works with either destroy or d.

Confirmation is required

destroy always runs in preview mode first. It prints the list of files it would delete and exits without touching anything until you re-run the command with --force. There is no interactive prompt — add --force to the same command once you’ve read the preview.

Synopsis

illustrative — synopsis

wheels destroy <name> [type] [--force]
wheels d <name> [type] [--force]

The first positional argument is the resource name. The second, optional, is the type — resource (the default), model, controller, or view. --force must be passed for any deletion to actually occur; without it, destroy prints the preview and exits.

Running wheels destroy with no arguments prints the usage block and supported types.

Supported types

destroy handles four types. This is narrower than generate — there is no destroy scaffold, destroy migration, or destroy helper. Use resource (the default) for the full CRUD surface that generate scaffold writes.

Type	What it removes
resource (default)	Model CFC, controller CFC, views directory, model spec, controller spec, view-tests directory, .resources() route line, plus a new drop-table migration file
model	Model CFC, model spec, plus a new drop-table migration file
controller	Controller CFC and controller spec
view	Entire view directory and its matching view-tests directory — or a single view file if you pass a controller/action path

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--force	off	Required to actually delete. Without --force, destroy prints the preview and exits.

Example

illustrative — preview then force

wheels destroy Post
# preview prints; nothing deleted yet

wheels destroy Post --force

The second command removes app/models/Post.cfc, app/controllers/Posts.cfc, app/views/posts/, tests/specs/models/PostSpec.cfc, tests/specs/controllers/PostsControllerSpec.cfc, tests/specs/views/posts/, and the .resources("posts") line from config/routes.cfm. It also writes a new <timestamp>_remove_posts_table.cfc migration into app/migrator/migrations/ — you still need to run wheels migrate latest to actually drop the table from the database.

Safety notes

destroy is destructive

• Commit your work before running destroy. Deleted files are gone — destroy does not move them to a backup directory.
• Run destroy without --force first and read the preview. The command always lists what it would delete before doing anything.
• destroy model and destroy resource generate a drop-table migration but do not execute it. Your database schema is unchanged until you run wheels migrate latest. If you want the schema back the way it was, delete the generated migration file before migrating.
• destroy resource (the default form, no type) removes the views directory. destroy controller does NOT — it deletes only the controller .cfc and its spec, so a hand-written partial in app/views/<name>/ is left in place. Use destroy view (or the resource form) when you want the views gone.
• Pass a controller/action path to destroy view when you only want a single template deleted instead of the whole directory.
• Files not found are reported as skipped, not errors — destroy succeeds even if the files you asked about were already gone.

Common workflows

Undo a scaffold

illustrative — undo scaffold

wheels destroy Post --force
wheels migrate latest   # apply the generated drop-table migration

Removes every file wheels generate scaffold Post wrote, clears its route, and — after the migrate — drops the posts table.

Clean up aborted work

illustrative — clean up aborted work

wheels destroy User model --force
wheels destroy Users controller --force

Useful when you ran wheels generate model and wheels generate controller separately, realised you named them wrong, and want to back out both without touching anything else. Each invocation is independent and prints its own preview when --force is omitted.

Re-scaffold under a new name

illustrative — re-scaffold under new name

wheels destroy Post --force
wheels migrate latest
wheels generate scaffold Article title body:text
wheels migrate latest

Tear down the old resource, apply the drop-table migration, and generate the new one. The two migrate runs keep the schema aligned with the filesystem at each step.

Related commands

Code Generation wheels generate — the inverse operation. Everything destroy can tear down was built here.

Creating a Project wheels new — scaffold a fresh project before you generate anything to tear down.

Database wheels migrate — apply the drop-table migration that destroy model and destroy resource write.