The internet is having fun with AI eulogies for dead side projects. I like the joke. I trust a boring exit report more.
A project is not finished when I stop opening the repository. It is finished when it stops costing money, holding credentials, collecting data, and depending on knowledge that exists only in my head.
Create EXIT.md
with five sections:
## Decision
Stopped on: YYYY-MM-DD
Primary reason: distribution / usefulness / cost / time / technical risk
## Current state
Last working revision:
Deployments:
Data stores:
Monthly cost:
## Shutdown
- [ ] disable scheduled jobs and webhooks
- [ ] revoke tokens and OAuth grants
- [ ] export or delete user data
- [ ] remove DNS and deployments
- [ ] verify billing after one cycle
## Reusable assets
Libraries, schemas, UI pieces, research, domain, audience
## Restart conditions
Evidence that would justify reopening the project
Run a credential search, inspect provider dashboards, and list recurring charges. Do not paste secrets into the report. Record where a credential was revoked and when.
Write three numbers you can verify: active users in a declared window, actual monthly infrastructure cost, and active hours spent on the last meaningful feature. If analytics were never installed, say “unknown.” A confident narrative built from missing data is not a retrospective.
Separate the reason you stopped from what the project taught. “I lost interest” can be true while the caching module is still reusable. Extract only assets with a real next owner; otherwise archive them in place and stop creating maintenance obligations.
Define restart conditions such as “five teams request the same workflow” or “the API cost falls below $X per completed task.” This prevents a quiet weekend from masquerading as new evidence.
The public MonkeyCode repository describes managed development environments and AI task workflows. It could be evaluated as infrastructure for future team projects, but it does not replace project-level shutdown, export, credential, and cost controls. I did not use MonkeyCode for this template.
Disclosure: I contribute to the MonkeyCode project. The exit-report method is independent; the product description comes from public documentation.
An exit report is less dramatic than a graveyard. It is also the document that saves next year's builder from repeating this year's cleanup.