Uninstalling a formula should disable and remove its service

[rolandcrosby-columntax]

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.0.29
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: a2a05f96ef6215643f599e7bfeaacd4f34e7cd9a
Last commit: 31 hours ago
Core tap JSON: 19 Jul 16:20 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_EDITOR: nvim
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 10
Homebrew Ruby: 2.6.10 => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.6/usr/bin/ruby
CPU: 10-core 64-bit arm_blizzard_avalanche
Clang: 14.0.3 build 1403
Git: 2.40.1 => /opt/homebrew/bin/git
Curl: 7.88.1 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 13.4.1-arm64
CLT: 14.3.1.0.1.1683849156
Xcode: 14.3.1
Rosetta 2: false

Output of brew doctor

Your system is ready to brew.

Description of issue

I used to have Postgres 13 installed on my Mac (brew install postgresql@13) and running automatically at login (brew services start postgresql@13). I recently upgraded to a new version and uninstalled Postgres 13 (brew uninstall postgresql@13), and was surprised to see that a homebrew.mxcl.postgresql@13.plist service still existed in ~/Library/LaunchAgents, which would try to start the Postgres 13 server in the now-gone path /opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql@13.

I would expect brew uninstall to detect that the formula being uninstalled provides a service, check if the service is enabled, and remove the launch agent configuration if one exists. It would be nice if this also elegantly handled the case when a service was installed globally via sudo brew services start.

[karimbenbourenane]

Almost two years later and this still hasn't been implemented? It's still an actual problem. Install any service with a launch agent plist and when uninstalling it just leaves the plist add to cruft in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. I can't see any possible reason to leave it there especially when the plists are in the form homebrew.mxcl.<formula>.plist such as homebrew.mxcl.redis.plist or homebrew.mxcl.postgresql@17.plist, these are clearly associated with a homebrew formula and wouldn't be there from a manual install using an official installer.

[SMillerDev]

It appears nobody found it as important and you did and volunteered their time to fix the problem. But I'll happily review your pull request when it comes around.