cc-janitor 0.5.1

Tidy up your Claude Code environment — sessions, permissions, context, hooks, schedule.

cc-janitor

🇬🇧 English · 🇷🇺 Русский

The deterministic janitor for your ~/.claude/ state. Audit sessions, permissions, CLAUDE.md, memory, hooks, and Auto Dream consolidations — with soft-delete trash, timestamped backups, reversible undo, and pre/post snapshots around every Auto Dream cycle. No LLM in the cleanup path. 12 upstream Claude Code issues closed across 4 shipped phases. MIT.

Why this exists, in one sentence. Anthropic’s Auto Dream rewrites your project memory between sessions — aggressively, without rollback, with no pre-flight check. Their own guidance is “back up ~/.claude/ before enabling” — and nothing in the Claude Code ecosystem does that backup, observes the consolidation, or lets you roll it back. cc-janitor does all three, plus cleans up everything else that piles up in ~/.claude/ after a few months of heavy use.

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Where this fits

The Claude Code state-management space in May 2026 splits into four bands:

Approach	Cost	What you get	What it lacks
Manual cleanup (grep / jq / rm)	$0 + hours of your time	Total control	No safety net, no audit, can’t undo a mistake
Auto Dream alone (Anthropic, server-gated)	$0	LLM-driven memory consolidation between sessions	No rollback, no pre-flight check, prunes aggressively, opaque to user
cc-janitor (this repo)	$0, MIT	Deterministic cleanup + Dream observer + soft-delete trash + reversible undo + audit-log	No LLM in cleanup path, no cloud sync, no multi-user
Paid SaaS / dashboards	—	(none exist for Claude Code state cleanup as of May 2026)	—

cc-janitor’s honest peer group is “Auto Dream + manual cleanup”. It does not compete with Auto Dream — it wraps it. The defensible delta vs doing nothing or scripting your own jq pipeline: every mutation is gated, logged, reversible, and Dream cycles are observable.

For Claude Code power users running daily for months — typically the people whose ~/.claude/ already crossed several GB and whose CLAUDE.md already contradicts itself — cc-janitor is the only deterministic option in the ecosystem. For people who used Claude Code twice last quarter, it isn’t, and we don’t pretend otherwise.

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What we deliberately do NOT ship

• No LLM in the cleanup path. Auto Dream uses an LLM and that’s exactly why it can over-prune, hallucinate contradictions, or miss provenance. cc-janitor uses regex, transcript-match counts, frontmatter parsing, and SHA-256 fingerprints. If a rule is ambiguous, we don’t act — we surface it.
• No silent deletes, ever. Every mutation goes through soft-delete to ~/.cc-janitor/.trash/ (30-day TTL) or timestamped backup in ~/.cc-janitor/backups/. Nothing leaves your disk without an audit-log entry. The last reversible action can be undone via cc-janitor undo.
• No “replace Auto Dream” pitch. Auto Dream’s job is LLM consolidation; we don’t try to do that with regex. We snapshot before, snapshot after, diff, and roll back if you don’t like what it did.
• No cloud, no telemetry, no sync. Single-user, local-only. If this repo disappears tomorrow your ~/.claude/ keeps working and your existing backups stay valid.
• No “AI cleans your config” pitch. cc-janitor is a complement to engineering judgment, not a replacement. It tells you what looks stale; you decide what to remove.

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How it works — four phases, one safety invariant

graph TB
    User["You / Claude Code<br/>(daily use)"]
    State["~/.claude/<br/>sessions · perms · CLAUDE.md<br/>memory · hooks · settings"]
    Scan["cc-janitor scan<br/>(deterministic rules)"]
    RO["read-only output<br/>perms audit · context cost<br/>dream doctor · stats"]
    Gate["CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1<br/>+ explicit user confirm"]
    Mut["mutate<br/>(soft-delete · backup-before-write · audit-log)"]
    Safe["~/.cc-janitor/<br/>.trash · backups · audit.log<br/>dream snapshots"]

    Dream["Auto Dream<br/>(Anthropic, LLM-based)"]
    Watch["watch --dream<br/>polls .consolidate-lock"]
    Diff["dream diff / rollback<br/>(reversible)"]

    User -->|"work"| State
    State --> Scan
    Scan --> RO
    RO --> User
    Scan -->|"+ user OK"| Gate
    Gate --> Mut
    Mut --> Safe
    Safe -->|"undo · restore"| State

    State -.->|"writes .consolidate-lock"| Dream
    Dream --> Watch
    Watch --> Safe
    Safe --> Diff
    Diff -->|"rollback --apply"| State

    classDef safe fill:#efe,stroke:#4c4
    classDef gate fill:#fee,stroke:#c44
    classDef ext fill:#eef,stroke:#44c
    class Safe,Diff safe
    class Gate gate
    class Dream ext

Phase	What happens	User cost
Scan	Discover sessions in ~/.claude/projects/, permission rules across 5 settings.json layers + ~/.claude.json, CLAUDE.md hierarchy, memory files, hooks across 4 layers, monorepo nested .claude/ dirs	0 (read-only)
Surface	Flag stale rules (no transcript match in 90 days), exact/subsumed/conflict duplicates, contradicting feedback pairs, bloated MEMORY.md (>200 lines), stale .consolidate-lock, missing .dream-log.md, server-gate state of autoDreamEnabled	0 (read-only)
Confirm	Mutating commands refuse to run unless CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 is set in the environment + the user said yes in conversation. --dry-run available on every mutation	0
Mutate	Soft-delete to trash, timestamped backup before every settings.json write, append JSONL record to audit.log. Last reversible action undoable via cc-janitor undo	reversible
Watch (opt-in)	Background daemon polls ~/.claude/projects/*/memory/.consolidate-lock every N seconds. On lock-appears: pre-snapshot. On lock-gone: post-snapshot. Record pair to dream-snapshots.jsonl	0
Diff / Rollback	Inspect what Auto Dream changed in any cycle, roll back any pair (also reversible via undo). Tar-compacted pairs (older than 7 days) remain diffable transparently	reversible

The safety invariant is the architectural anchor: no mutation reaches your ~/.claude/ without both an env-var gate AND user confirmation in conversation, and every mutation produces a reversible artifact. It is structurally impossible for cc-janitor to silently destroy data — by design, not by promise.

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Built on real upstream Claude Code issues

This isn’t a vibe-coded janitor. Every shipped phase closes verified, reproducible bugs in the upstream anthropics/claude-code repository:

Issue	Reported behaviour	Closed by
#29746	Memory / CLAUDE.md re-injection workflow missing	v0.2.0 — cc-janitor context reinject + Stop-hook
#11544, #10401, #16564	Hooks fail silently, no way to debug locally	v0.2.0 — hooks debugger + 9-event simulator with realistic payloads
#37344, #35561, #18192, #40640	Nested .claude/ dirs in monorepos not discovered	v0.3.0 — cc-janitor monorepo scan with real/nested/junk classification
#47959	Auto Dream silently deletes useful memory entries	v0.4.0 — cc-janitor dream (history / diff / rollback)
#50694	Stale .consolidate-lock silently disables future Auto Dream cycles	v0.4.0 — cc-janitor dream doctor (10 checks incl. stale-lock detection)
#38493	Missing .dream-log.md — no record of what Dream did	v0.4.0 — settings audit hook + Dream pre/post snapshot pairs
#38461	No way to know if autoDreamEnabled server-flag flipped on/off	v0.4.0 — settings-observe + ~/.cc-janitor/state/autodream-last-seen.json

12 upstream issues closed across 4 phases shipped in 6 days (v0.1.1 on 2026-05-05 → v0.4.0 on 2026-05-11). Every “closed by” entry in the CHANGELOG cross-references the issue number.

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What you actually get

uv tool install cc-janitor puts a single binary on your PATH and writes nothing else until you run it. On first mutating run, cc-janitor creates ~/.cc-janitor/:

~/.cc-janitor/
├── audit.log                       # append-only JSONL, Cyrillic-safe, rotates at 10 MB
├── config.toml                     # user-tunable thresholds (Dream retention, hygiene regex)
├── dream-snapshots.jsonl           # one record per pre/post Dream pair
├── .trash/                         # soft-deleted sessions, 30-day TTL
│   └── <timestamp>/<bundle>/
├── backups/                        # timestamped, never auto-deleted by default
│   ├── <sha-of-path>/              # per-file backup history of settings.json writes
│   │   └── *.bak
│   └── dream/                      # Auto Dream pre/post mirror pairs
│       ├── <pair_id>-pre/
│       └── <pair_id>-post/
├── history/                        # daily JSONL snapshots → stats dashboard
│   └── <date>.json
├── hooks-log/                      # per-event hook execution logs
│   └── <event>.log
└── state/
    └── autodream-last-seen.json    # cache of last observed autoDreamEnabled flag

Nothing here leaves your machine. ~/.cc-janitor/.trash/ and ~/.cc-janitor/backups/dream/ are the only directories that grow significantly; both have built-in retention (backups tar-compact for Dream pairs, trash empty --older-than 30d for trash).

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Quick Start (3 minutes)

1. Install

# From PyPI (recommended)
uv tool install cc-janitor
# or
pipx install cc-janitor

# Optional watcher extra for the background Dream-snapshot daemon
uv tool install "cc-janitor[watcher]"

2. First read-only audit (no risk, nothing mutates)

cc-janitor                          # launches the TUI (8 tabs)
cc-janitor --tutorial               # re-show the first-run Welcome tour
cc-janitor perms audit              # which permission rules are stale / dupes
cc-janitor context cost             # what your context costs per request, in $
cc-janitor dream doctor             # 10 health checks for Auto Dream
cc-janitor stats sleep-hygiene      # memory hygiene metrics

TUI tab-by-tab tour (each tab has a 1-line header at the top, and [F1] anywhere opens a tab-specific help modal):

• Sessions — every Claude Code conversation in ~/.claude/projects/, sorted by last activity. d soft-deletes the highlighted session (preview + confirm modal; restorable via cc-janitor trash restore).
• Permissions — Bash/Edit/etc. allow rules merged from all settings layers, annotated with Used90d match-counts and STALE/DUP flags. p prune-stale and D dedup both open preview modals before mutating.
• Context — what gets injected into every request (CLAUDE.md, memory, skills) with token totals and per-request cost. Skill tokens reflect the skillListingMaxDescChars cap (default 1536), not full file size.
• Memory — your CLAUDE.md / MEMORY.md / feedback / project-state / reference files. r reinjects, a archives, f finds duplicates.
• Hooks — PreToolUse / PostToolUse / Stop hooks merged across layers. l toggles logging, t simulates the command, v opens source in $EDITOR.
• Schedule — maintenance jobs via cron / schtasks. a add (from template), r remove, n run-now, p promote-from-dry-run.
• Audit — daily-stats sparklines (toggle with s); undo via cc-janitor undo CLI.
• Dream — Auto Dream before/after snapshot pairs with file-level diffs (rollback via cc-janitor dream rollback CLI).

On first launch a Welcome modal lists all eight tabs and what each shows; dismissing it touches ~/.cc-janitor/state/seen-welcome so it never reappears. Run cc-janitor --tutorial to see it again.

If context cost reveals you’re burning more tokens per request than you thought, or perms audit shows 60% of your rules are stale, you’ll know whether to proceed to step 3.

3. Clean up (with confirmation)

Every mutating command requires CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 AND supports --dry-run:

# Preview first
CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 cc-janitor session prune --older-than 90d --dry-run

# Apply if happy
CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 cc-janitor session prune --older-than 90d
CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 cc-janitor perms dedupe
CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 cc-janitor perms prune --older-than 90d

4. Wrap Auto Dream (if you have the server-gate flag)

# Background daemon — snapshots before/after every Dream cycle
CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 cc-janitor watch start --dream

# Inspect what each Dream cycle changed
cc-janitor dream history
cc-janitor dream diff <pair_id>

# Roll back if Dream rewrote something you wanted to keep
CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 cc-janitor dream rollback <pair_id> --apply

# Changed your mind?
cc-janitor undo --apply

5. Tell Claude Code about it

Append docs/CC_USAGE.md to your ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md so Claude Code knows which cc-janitor subcommands are safe to call without asking and which require explicit user confirmation.

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What gets cleaned out of the box

Sessions

• List, search, preview, summary of every chat in ~/.claude/projects/
• Soft-delete to ~/.cc-janitor/.trash/ (30-day recoverable window)
• Restore from trash, empty trash by age
• Project-scoped filtering, related-dir bundling for atomic delete

Permissions

• Discovery across all 5 settings layers: global settings.json, global settings.local.json, project settings.json, project settings.local.json, ~/.claude.json approvedTools
• Usage analysis via transcript tool_use scan
• Dedupe categories: subsumed (rule A is implied by rule B), exact, conflict, empty
• Prune stale (no transcript match in 90 days)
• Write-back with timestamped backups in ~/.cc-janitor/backups/<sha-of-path>/

Context / memory

• Walk CLAUDE.md hierarchy (global → project → nested)
• Memory file discovery + frontmatter parsing + type classification (user / feedback / project / reference)
• Cross-file duplicate-line detection
• Byte and token cost per file + recurring-per-request total, with $ estimate at Opus input rate
• cc-janitor context reinject — writes a marker the user’s Stop-hook reads to re-load memory

Hooks

• Discovery across 4 settings layers
• Schema validation against the Claude Code hook spec
• Simulator for 9 event types (UserPromptSubmit, PreToolUse, PostToolUse, Notification, Stop, SubagentStop, SessionStart, PreCompact, PostCompact) with realistic stdin payloads
• Reversible logging wrapper (sentinel-based unwrap)
• Per-event log directory ~/.cc-janitor/hooks-log/<event>.log

Scheduler

• CronScheduler (Linux/macOS) and SchtasksScheduler (Windows) backends
• 6 templates: perms-prune, trash-cleanup, session-prune, context-audit, backup-rotate, dream-tar-compact
• Scheduled runs set CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 + CC_JANITOR_SCHEDULED=1 (latter activates per-run hard cap, default 200)
• First run after schedule add is automatically --dry-run — schedule promote flips to live

Auto Dream safety net (Phase 4)

• Background watcher (watch start --dream) polls .consolidate-lock per project memory dir
• Pre/post mirror snapshots in ~/.cc-janitor/backups/dream/<pair_id>-{pre,post}/
• dream doctor (10 checks): stale-lock detection, autoDreamEnabled state, server-gate inference hint, last-dream timestamp, backup-dir disk usage, MEMORY.md cap, memory file count, cross-file duplicate summary, settings-audit toggle warning, missing .dream-log.md
• dream history, dream diff <pair_id>, dream rollback <pair_id> --apply, dream prune --older-than-days N --apply
• stats sleep-hygiene — 4 metrics: MEMORY.md line count, relative-date density (“yesterday” / “recently”), cross-file duplicate count, contradicting-feedback pairs
• Settings-observe cache: detects when autoDreamEnabled flips and logs to audit-log

Monorepo

• Walks a configurable root, classifies each .claude/ as real / nested / junk (e.g. inside node_modules)
• All Permissions / Hooks / Memory commands accept --scope flag with this classification

Export / import

• config export <bundle.tar.gz> [--include-memory] — SHA-256 manifest, hard-exclusion of secrets (settings.local.json, .env, credentials.json)
• config import <bundle.tar.gz> [--dry-run] [--apply] — verified manifest, backup-before-overwrite

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Safety model

The contract — by design, not by hope:

1. CC_JANITOR_USER_CONFIRMED=1 env gate. Every mutating command and the TUI ConfirmModal checks this. Read-only commands (list, show, audit, cost, doctor, stats, dream history/diff/doctor) are always free. Critical safety fix in 0.3.2: the TUI was previously bypassing this gate via os.environ.setdefault — now corrected via scoped context manager.
2. Soft-delete > hard-delete. Sessions and memory files go to ~/.cc-janitor/.trash/<timestamp>/ for 30 days. cc-janitor trash list shows what’s recoverable. cc-janitor trash restore <id> brings a file back (itself gated, because restoring a file that may contain secrets is a write).
3. Backup before every settings.json write. Stored in ~/.cc-janitor/backups/<sha-of-path>/<timestamp>.bak. Never auto-cleaned by default.
4. Append-only JSONL audit log. ~/.cc-janitor/audit.log, rotates at 10 MB, Cyrillic-safe round-trip. Every mutating action records cmd, mode (cli | tui | scheduled), path, changed (for undo), exit code.
5. Reversible undo. cc-janitor undo [<entry-ts>] [--apply] reverses the most recent reversible audit-log entry. Handles session/perms/memory mutations via trash restore or .bak restoration.
6. Pre/post snapshot around Auto Dream. watch --dream records a pre mirror before Dream writes, a post mirror after. Both diffable, the pair rollback-able via dream rollback.
7. Scheduled-run hard cap. CC_JANITOR_SCHEDULED=1 activates a per-run mutation cap (default 200, configurable via CC_JANITOR_HARD_CAP). Protects against runaway cron jobs.

If any of these fail in a way that loses data, file it as a P0 issue — the safety model is the whole product, and we treat its bugs accordingly.

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CLI commands

cc-janitor                                # TUI (8 tabs)
cc-janitor --version
cc-janitor --lang ru                      # force Russian i18n
cc-janitor doctor                         # all-component health line

# Sessions
cc-janitor session list [--project P] [--older-than 90d]
cc-janitor session show <id>
cc-janitor session summary <id>
cc-janitor session search "<query>"
cc-janitor session delete <id>...         # mutating
cc-janitor session prune --older-than 90d # mutating

# Permissions
cc-janitor perms audit
cc-janitor perms list [--stale] [--dup] [--scope real|nested|junk|all]
cc-janitor perms dedupe                   # mutating
cc-janitor perms prune --older-than 90d   # mutating
cc-janitor perms remove "<rule>" --from <path>  # mutating
cc-janitor perms add    "<rule>" --to   <scope> # mutating

# Context / memory
cc-janitor context show
cc-janitor context cost                   # $ per request
cc-janitor context find-duplicates
cc-janitor context reinject [--memory] [--claude-md]
cc-janitor memory list [--scope ...]
cc-janitor memory show <name>
cc-janitor memory edit <name>             # mutating, opens $EDITOR
cc-janitor memory archive <name>          # mutating
cc-janitor memory move-type <name> --to <type>  # mutating
cc-janitor memory delete <name>           # mutating
cc-janitor memory find-duplicates

# Hooks
cc-janitor hooks list [--scope ...]
cc-janitor hooks show <name>
cc-janitor hooks simulate <event>         # 9 events with realistic payloads
cc-janitor hooks validate
cc-janitor hooks enable-logging           # mutating
cc-janitor hooks disable-logging          # mutating

# Scheduler
cc-janitor schedule list
cc-janitor schedule add <template>        # mutating; first run is dry-run
cc-janitor schedule remove <name>         # mutating
cc-janitor schedule run <name> [--dry-run]
cc-janitor schedule promote <name>        # mutating; flips dry-run → live
cc-janitor schedule audit

# Watcher
cc-janitor watch start [--dream]          # mutating; daemonizes
cc-janitor watch stop
cc-janitor watch status

# Stats
cc-janitor stats [--since 30d] [--format text|json|csv]
cc-janitor stats snapshot
cc-janitor stats sleep-hygiene

# Dream safety net
cc-janitor dream history
cc-janitor dream diff <pair_id>
cc-janitor dream doctor                   # 10 health checks
cc-janitor dream rollback <pair_id> --apply  # mutating
cc-janitor dream prune --older-than-days N --apply  # mutating

# Bundle
cc-janitor config init                    # scaffolds ~/.cc-janitor/config.toml
cc-janitor config export <bundle.tar.gz> [--include-memory]
cc-janitor config import <bundle.tar.gz> [--dry-run] [--apply]

# Safety primitives
cc-janitor trash list
cc-janitor trash restore <id>             # mutating
cc-janitor trash empty --older-than 30d   # mutating
cc-janitor backups list
cc-janitor backups prune --older-than-days N  # mutating; does NOT touch dream backups by default
cc-janitor backups tar-compact --kind dream   # mutating

cc-janitor audit list [--since][--cmd][--failed][--json]
cc-janitor undo [<entry-ts>] [--apply]    # mutating

# Completions
cc-janitor completions install [bash|zsh|fish|powershell]

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Documentation

• <CHANGELOG.md> — full feature history per release; every closed upstream issue cross-referenced
• <docs/CC_USAGE.md> — append this to your ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md so Claude Code knows which subcommands are safe-to-call vs need-explicit-confirmation
• <docs/cookbook.md> — recipes for memory hygiene, scheduled maintenance, monorepo workflows, Dream snapshot setup, stale-lock diagnosis, bundle export/import
• ~/.cc-janitor/config.toml — user-tunable thresholds (Dream snapshot retention, hygiene regex extras, scheduler hard-cap)

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Status — v0.5.1 honest TUI

Shipped 2026-05-22. CI matrix Python 3.11 × 3.12 × Ubuntu × Windows.

Phase	Released	Highlights
Phase 1	v0.1.x (2026-05-05)	Sessions / permissions / context inspector / safety primitives
Phase 2	v0.2.0 (2026-05-09)	Memory editor / reinject hook / hooks debugger / scheduler
Phase 3	v0.3.0 (2026-05-11)	Monorepo discovery / watcher daemon / stats dashboard / bundle export-import / shell completions
Phase 3.x	v0.3.1–0.3.3 (2026-05-11)	TUI safety-gate fix, undo, schedule audit, memory delete, backups list/prune
Phase 4	v0.4.0 (2026-05-11)	Dream snapshot harness / dream doctor / sleep-hygiene metrics / settings audit hook
0.5.x	v0.5.0–0.5.1 (2026-05-22)	TUI rendering fix (1fr CSS), F1 help, focus on tab-switch, real Sessions delete / Perms prune+dedup, accurate skill cost
Phase 5	planned	Cross-platform hook fixers, dream fix-stale-lock, mutating Dream TUI actions, fuller I10/I11 closure

Looking for early users on Windows. CI covers the matrix but real-world Windows hook compatibility (PowerShell vs Git Bash vs WSL) has reported edge cases. The dedicated issue template takes ~5 min.

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Related work and credible voices in this space

If you’re researching Claude Code state management in 2026:

• Anthropic’s Auto Dream announcement at Code with Claude — the feature cc-janitor wraps. Anthropic’s own guidance (“back up ~/.claude/ before enabling”) is the motivating constraint for Phase 4.
• anthropics/claude-code issue tracker — the 12 upstream issues cc-janitor closes all live here. Read #47959 and #50694 for the Dream pain points that prove Phase 4 isn’t speculative.
• Matt Pocock’s skills repo — canonical reference for the Claude Code skills ecosystem; cc-janitor’s docs/CC_USAGE.md follows the same drop-into-CLAUDE.md pattern.
• Simon Willison’s Claude Code TILs — most-cited practical-knowledge collection in this niche; the principle of “Claude Code’s filesystem state is yours to inspect and own” runs through every page.

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Related — Claude Code ecosystem by the same author

Same author, same voice, all built around Claude Code:

• webtest-orch — token-efficient e2e orchestration skill (Playwright + axe-core + run-diff)
• claude-code-antiregression-setup — CLAUDE.md + subagents + hooks pattern. Featured on Habr (top-5 of the day, 20K reads)
• ai-context-hierarchy — three-level context system
• claude-statusline — statusline for Claude Code with VPS health monitoring. Featured on Habr
• notebooklm-claude-workflows — seven slash-commands for Google NotebookLM research pipelines
• accu — AI-curated discovery + evaluation pipeline for open-source revival
• lingua-companion — voice-first English tutor (validation target for webtest-orch)
• security-scanner — mobile threat detection via VPN traffic analysis
• diabot — non-commercial Telegram bot for type 1 diabetes
• ghost-showcase — invisible AI assistant for Windows (commercial product showcase)

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License

MIT — see .

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — see <CONTRIBUTING.md> when present. For OS-specific bug reports, the dedicated issue template keeps repro structured. Phase 5 ideas live in issues tagged phase-5.

Author

Nick Podolyak — Python developer and digital architect at CREATMAN

• GitHub: @CreatmanCEO
• Habr: creatman
• dev.to: @creatman
• Telegram: @Creatman_it