{"slug": "give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy", "title": "Give a Dead Side Project an Exit Report, Not an AI Eulogy", "summary": "A developer proposes replacing AI-generated eulogies for dead side projects with a structured exit report template. The template includes sections for decision, current state, shutdown checklist, reusable assets, and restart conditions, emphasizing credential revocation, cost tracking, and data cleanup.", "body_md": "The internet is having fun with AI eulogies for dead side projects. I like the joke. I trust a boring exit report more.\n\nA 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.\n\nCreate `EXIT.md`\n\nwith five sections:\n\n```\n# Exit report\n\n## Decision\nStopped on: YYYY-MM-DD\nPrimary reason: distribution / usefulness / cost / time / technical risk\n\n## Current state\nLast working revision:\nDeployments:\nData stores:\nMonthly cost:\n\n## Shutdown\n- [ ] disable scheduled jobs and webhooks\n- [ ] revoke tokens and OAuth grants\n- [ ] export or delete user data\n- [ ] remove DNS and deployments\n- [ ] verify billing after one cycle\n\n## Reusable assets\nLibraries, schemas, UI pieces, research, domain, audience\n\n## Restart conditions\nEvidence that would justify reopening the project\n```\n\nRun 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 Record where a credential was revoked and when.\n\nWrite three numbers you can verify: active users in a declared window, actual monthly infrastructure cost, and active hours spent on the last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.\n\nSeparate 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.\n\nDefine 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.\n\nThe public [MonkeyCode repository](https://github.com/chaitin/MonkeyCode) 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.\n\nDisclosure: I contribute to the MonkeyCode project. The exit-report method is independent; the product description comes from public documentation.\n\nAn 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.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/rivera123/give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy-38kp", "published_at": "2026-07-13 02:41:34+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-13 03:14:44.657768+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools"], "entities": ["MonkeyCode"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/give-a-dead-side-project-an-exit-report-not-an-ai-eulogy.jsonld"}}