BUNDLE-PRISTINE(1) General Commands Manual BUNDLE-PRISTINE(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

**bundle-pristine** - Restores installed gems to their pristine condition

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**bundle pristine**

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

**pristine** restores the installed gems in the bundle to their pristine condition using the local gem cache from RubyGems. For git gems, a forced checkout will be performed.

For further explanation, **bundle pristine** ignores unpacked files on disk. In other words, this command utilizes the local **.gem** cache or the gem's git repository as if one were installing from scratch.

Note: the Bundler gem cannot be restored to its original state with **pristine**. One also cannot use **bundle pristine** on gems with a 'path' option in the Gemfile, because bundler has no original copy it can restore from.

When is it practical to use **bundle pristine**?

It comes in handy when a developer is debugging a gem. **bundle pristine** is a great way to get rid of experimental changes to a gem that one may not want.

Why use **bundle pristine** over **gem pristine --all**?

Both commands are very similar. For context: **bundle pristine**, without arguments, cleans all gems from the lockfile. Meanwhile, **gem pristine --all** cleans all installed gems for that Ruby version.

If a developer forgets which gems in their project they might have been debugging, the Rubygems **gem pristine \[GEMNAME]** command may be inconvenient. One can avoid waiting for **gem pristine --all**, and instead run **bundle pristine**.

April 2026

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Document: bundle-pristine(1) from ruby3.4-bundler 4.0.23-r0 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/rubygems/rubygems