diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
index 2a6279f..8424e68 100644
--- a/.jules/bolt.md
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -25,3 +25,9 @@
 ## 2024-05-25 - Efficient Dictionary Initialization
 **Learning:** Building a dictionary via a standard `for` loop by inserting elements one by one can cause unnecessary overhead due to repeated mutations. `reduce(into: [:])` is highly optimized in Swift to build collections without creating intermediate copies.
 **Action:** Use `reduce(into: [:])` when constructing a dictionary from an array, particularly when uniqueness checks or transformations are required.
+## 2024-05-18 - Cooperative Thread Pool Exhaustion in Bulk I/O
+**Learning:** In Swift Concurrency, executing synchronous blocking operations like `FileManager.removeItem` inside a `TaskGroup` without isolation can quickly exhaust the limited cooperative thread pool (which has threads equal to CPU cores), leading to system-wide deadlock or starvation.
+**Action:** When parallelizing synchronous blocking I/O calls, wrap them in `Task.detached { ... }.value` to escape the cooperative pool and execute on a background queue, and control concurrency with a sliding window iterator.
+## 2024-05-18 - Escaping Cooperative Thread Pool
+**Learning:** `Task.detached` executes on the global cooperative thread pool and does *not* safely offload synchronous blocking I/O. Using it with concurrent groups can still exhaust the thread pool.
+**Action:** To truly move blocking work (like `FileManager.removeItem`) off the cooperative thread pool in Swift Concurrency, wrap the execution in `withCheckedThrowingContinuation` and dispatch to a background GCD queue (e.g., `DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async`).
diff --git a/Sources/Cacheout/Cleaner/CacheCleaner.swift b/Sources/Cacheout/Cleaner/CacheCleaner.swift
index 5e1c18f..bfaf261 100644
--- a/Sources/Cacheout/Cleaner/CacheCleaner.swift
+++ b/Sources/Cacheout/Cleaner/CacheCleaner.swift
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ actor CacheCleaner {
                         if moveToTrash {
                             try await trashDirectory(url)
                         } else {
-                            try removeContents(of: url)
+                            try await removeContents(of: url, fileManager: fileManager)
                         }
                         categoryFreed += result.sizeBytes
                     } catch {
@@ -86,7 +86,18 @@ actor CacheCleaner {
                 if moveToTrash {
                     try await trashItem(item.nodeModulesPath)
                 } else {
-                    try fileManager.removeItem(at: item.nodeModulesPath)
+                    let path = item.nodeModulesPath
+                    let fm = fileManager
+                    try await withCheckedThrowingContinuation { (continuation: CheckedContinuation<Void, Error>) in
+                        DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async {
+                            do {
+                                try fm.removeItem(at: path)
+                                continuation.resume()
+                            } catch {
+                                continuation.resume(throwing: error)
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
                 }
                 cleaned.append(("node_modules: \(item.projectName)", item.sizeBytes))
                 logCleanup(category: "node_modules/\(item.projectName)", bytesFreed: item.sizeBytes)
@@ -133,12 +144,48 @@ actor CacheCleaner {
         }
     }
 
-    private func removeContents(of url: URL) throws {
+    nonisolated private func removeContents(of url: URL, fileManager: FileManager) async throws {
         let contents = try fileManager.contentsOfDirectory(
             at: url, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil
         )
-        for item in contents {
-            try fileManager.removeItem(at: item)
+
+        try await withThrowingTaskGroup(of: Void.self) { group in
+            var iterator = contents.makeIterator()
+            let maxConcurrency = 8
+
+            for _ in 0..<maxConcurrency {
+                if let item = iterator.next() {
+                    group.addTask {
+                        try await withCheckedThrowingContinuation { (continuation: CheckedContinuation<Void, Error>) in
+                            DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async {
+                                do {
+                                    try fileManager.removeItem(at: item)
+                                    continuation.resume()
+                                } catch {
+                                    continuation.resume(throwing: error)
+                                }
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
+                }
+            }
+
+            for try await _ in group {
+                if let item = iterator.next() {
+                    group.addTask {
+                        try await withCheckedThrowingContinuation { (continuation: CheckedContinuation<Void, Error>) in
+                            DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async {
+                                do {
+                                    try fileManager.removeItem(at: item)
+                                    continuation.resume()
+                                } catch {
+                                    continuation.resume(throwing: error)
+                                }
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
+                }
+            }
         }
     }