One phase at a time
The core idea behind mini-orchestrator is almost stubbornly simple: do one small thing, check that it works, then move on. No grand plan that survives contact with reality for five minutes — just the next sensible step.
The loop
Every phase walks the same short loop:
mini next— Claude proposes one phase with a clear, checkable goal.mini plan— break it into 3–7 concrete steps.mini do— implement them in a focused session.mini done— answer "does it work?" and move the state forward.
Each step produces something you can actually verify: a route that returns 200,
a test that passes, a page that renders. "Build the backend" is not a step;
"/tasks returns JSON, covered by a test" is.
Why small wins
A long autonomous run drifts. The further it gets from the last point you
checked, the more expensive a wrong turn becomes. Small phases keep the blast
radius tiny — if a phase goes sideways, you've lost an hour, not a week. And the
state lives in plain files under .mini/, so you can always see exactly where
you are.
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
That's the whole trick. Nothing clever — just refusing to skip the part where you check that the last thing actually worked.