coldstart: one page after git clone
Developer SybilGambleyyu released coldstart, a Go-based CLI tool that generates a project overview from local files after `git clone`. The tool reports runtimes (Node engines, Go version, Cargo edition, Python requires, .nvmrc, .tool-versions), preferred npm scripts, Makefile targets, just/Taskfile commands, ports from Compose and env variables, env keys from .env.example, and CI secrets/vars from GitHub Actions workflows (excluding builtins like GITHUB_TOKEN). It runs offline with no accounts, outputting JSON or Markdown via flags like `-json` or `-md`. The author describes the first hour with a new repo as "archaeology" involving opening package.json, skimming Makefile, hunting for .env.example, and grepping workflows for secrets. Coldstart is part of a suite of small binaries (howrun, projports, needsecrets, lockbrief) that are MIT-licensed with no SaaS. The tool is installed via `go install github.com/SybilGambleyyu/coldstart@latest` and used with commands like `coldstart -md >> ONBOARDING.md`.
Coldstart reduces the first-hour overhead of understanding a new repo to a single command.