In Part 7 we had the instrument panel: where am I, one step back, which model. Two commands remain, the ones that watch the project's health — not the phase state, but whether the whole thing holds together. changelog
(what changed, and when, for users) and doctor
(whether the mini setup is in order). Both read-only, both Claude-free.
changelog
— what has piled up
Remember Part 4? Every done
proposes an entry for CHANGELOG.md
. After four phases, a fair amount has piled up there — and changelog
shows it to you without opening the file:
mini changelog
[Unreleased]
### Added
- Tokenizer for arithmetic expressions: numbers (integer and decimal),
operators `+ - * /`, and parentheses, each token carrying its position…
- `evaluate(text)` function that parses and computes an arithmetic
expression, returning a `Decimal`. Supports `+ - * /`, parentheses,
left-associative operators (`2-3-4 = -5`), and unary minus…
- Command-line interface: `python3 pycalc.py "2+3*4"` evaluates the
expression and prints the result, with exit codes 0/1/2…
- `-h` / `--help` flag: prints usage, the supported operators…
No released version yet — showing the Unreleased section.
A bare mini changelog
shows the latest released version. But pycalc hasn't released anything yet (we never bumped the version — Part 6 mentioned --bump
/--push
are opt-in), so the command notices there's no dated version and honestly falls back to the [Unreleased]
section with that note. When you want something specific:
mini changelog --unreleased # the pending changes
mini changelog --version 1.0.0 # a specific release
mini changelog --all # the whole file
An important detail: changelog
is independent of .mini/ — it just reads
CHANGELOG.md
from the current directory. It works even in a project that has nothing to do with mini. It's a reader, not part of the state.doctor
— is the setup in order?
doctor
walks the project and prints a checklist — what's OK, what's a warning, what's broken, and for each problem how to fix it:
mini doctor
mini doctor
✓ Project: state schema v2
✓ Phases: no orphaned "doing" phases
✓ Run reports: no stale reports
✓ Decisions: no stale decisions
✓ project.md: present
✓ CHANGELOG.md: present
! Slash commands: none installed in this project
Run `mini install-commands` (or rely on the user-scope ones)
! Version: v1.18.0 → v1.20.0 available
Run `mini upgrade` to update
[!] All essentials present, 2 warnings.
What it checks, and why it makes sense:
state.json
version match what this mini can read? If not, it suggests mini migrate
. (This is the one fail
that actually stops you.)doing
with no open work? That's the "stuck" state we saw in Parts 4-5; doctor
finds it and suggests done
or undo
..mini/run/
or .mini/decisions/
from a phase that no longer exists (e.g. after undo
)? Safe to delete./mini:*
set installed in the project? For pycalc it's !
(warning), not a ✗
.doctor
just told me that v1.20.0
is out while I'm running v1.18.0
.The summary tallies the counts: for pycalc, "All essentials present, 2 warnings" — nothing critical, two things to consider. doctor
is purely read-only diagnostics; it fixes nothing itself, it just shows and advises.
When to run it: after
undo
/migrate
(to check nothing was left behind), after a mini update, or simply when something feels off and you want a quick check that the problem isn't in the setup.
The same pattern as the state commands from Part 7: read-only, local, zero tokens. changelog
reads CHANGELOG.md
, doctor
reads the filesystem and the version cache. Neither starts Claude, neither changes anything. They're the warning lights on the dashboard — you glance when you want to, and move on.
doctor
checks the setup, not the code.verify
.changelog
is only as good as done
wrote it.CHANGELOG.md
— and that's produced in the done
session. Leave a vague entry there and changelog
hands it back to you just as vague. It's a reader, not a proofreader.doctor
warning is not an order.That completes the set: from init
through the whole loop, autonomous mode, state and health. One scenario remains, the one we've skirted so far: what if a project is already running and you want to bring mini into it after the fact? That's Part 9 — import-gsd
, audit
, and map
, three ways to set mini onto an existing codebase. And because it's the finale, we'll release pycalc on GitHub — not as "yet another calculator", but as an open showcase of .mini/
: the vision, the backlog, the phase memories and run reports, exactly the files this whole series has described.
*mini is open source: npm install -g mini-orchestrator, then mini install-commands in your project. Source and docs on *