All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[0.2.0] - 2026-08-05

Changed

  • {:add, name} is now the single verb for getting a package into an app. It runs Starter's built-in step when one exists, and otherwise installs the package and runs the package's own Igniter installer. Whether a package ships an installer is upstream's business and changes over time, so it is no longer something a workflow file has to encode — when a package gains an installer, its built-in step retires and workflows naming it keep working unchanged.

    {:install, name} still works, and now means "use upstream's installer even if Starter has a step of that name". It is rarely needed.

  • Package installers are composed into the workflow run rather than queued into a subprocess. Everything a run does — Starter's steps and the packages' own installers — lands in one diff you confirm once. Installers no longer run after your confirmation via mix igniter.install.

    Dependencies are the exception: packages that resolve to an install are added to mix.exs and fetched before any step runs, because their installers have to be on disk to compose at all. That dependency change is shown and confirmed on its own, ahead of the run's main diff.

  • Steps apply in list order, installers included. A step placed after one that installs a package sees its effects, so {:queue, ...} is no longer needed to sequence work around installs — it remains for work that genuinely has to run against the applied project on disk.

  • The generated workflow follows suit: oban_pro and sort_deps are ordinary in-run steps again, oban_pro placed after oban whose installer output it patches, and sort_deps last so it sorts the dependencies the installers added. This supersedes the 0.1.2 change that queued sort_deps.

Added

  • Every run prints a plan showing what each step resolved to — a built-in step, a package's installer, a plain dependency, or queued work. This is where the built-in-vs-installer distinction is now visible, since the step list no longer draws it.

  • Starter.Runner.installs/2, returning the packages a run would install with optional steps resolved against the given flags.

  • {:add, name} raises with a suggestion when name closely resembles a built-in step, so a typo is reported as a typo instead of becoming a doomed Hex lookup.

Fixed

  • The README documented mix starter.add oban,credo, which never worked — oban has no built-in add step, so the command errored. The starter.add CLI runs Starter's own steps only; use mix igniter.install for packages that ship installers.

[0.1.2] - 2026-08-04

Fixed

  • Passing a workflow flag (e.g. mix starter.run --oban-pro) crashed the entire queued-task chain: custom flags leaked into subprocess argv and igniter.install's strict option parser rejected them, so no installs ran at all. Queued tasks now receive exactly their own args plus --yes.
  • mix starter.run failed with "No workflow found" on Mix 1.20.3+: workflow discovery relied on mix compile loading the app, which newer Mix no longer does. The app is now loaded explicitly.
  • Re-running the bun step on an already-configured app crashed rewrite's formatter; its dep add and config edits are now skip-on-rerun.

Changed

  • The generated workflow queues sort_deps last instead of running it in-run, so dependencies added by the {:install, ...} installers get sorted too. Ordering guidance added to the Starter.Workflow docs.

[0.1.1] - 2026-08-04

Fixed

  • Interactive mix starter.run (without --yes) stalled at the first {:install, ...} step: Igniter executes queued tasks through a subprocess with no stdin, so the upstream installer's confirmation prompt could never be answered. Queued tasks (installs included) now always run with --yes — confirming the workflow's diff is the approval for everything it queues.

[0.1.0] - 2026-08-04

Initial release.

Added

  • Starter.Workflowuse Starter.Workflow turns a module into a runnable, flag-aware Igniter setup task
  • Workflow step forms: built-in steps ({:add, :oban}), optional steps (if: :flag), arbitrary Mix tasks ({:task, name, argv}), nested workflows ({:workflow, Module}), and custom step modules
  • mix starter.new — generates a self-documenting, editable workflow in your project. Every step carries a description rendered from its module's @shortdoc, so the file cannot drift from the catalog
  • mix starter.run — finds and runs your project's workflow, passing flags through (equivalent to invoking the workflow task directly)
  • mix starter.add, mix starter.remove, mix starter.gen — run steps individually, with --list
  • {:install, :package} step form: packages that ship their own Igniter installer (oban, oban_web, tidewave, ash, …) are installed by their own installer via mix igniter.install; Starter ships no competing step for them. Built-in add steps exist only where upstream ships no installer.
  • {:queue, task, argv} step form: queue any Mix task to run after the workflow's changes apply, in order — the way to sequence work after {:install, ...} steps (e.g. oban_pro after {:install, :oban})
  • mix starter.new --from SomeShared.Workflow — generate the app's workflow by expanding a shared workflow module (e.g. from a personal step pack) instead of the built-in catalog
  • Step catalog: 11 add steps, 5 remove steps, 12 gen steps (see README)
  • Latest-Phoenix-only support policy: steps target current phx.new output (Phoenix 1.8); workflows warn when run against apps on older Phoenix versions
  • Remove/gen steps warn loudly when they find nothing to change instead of silently no-oping
  • Version lookups (Hex, npm, GitHub, and the Oban Pro docs site for the private-repo oban_pro package) keep generated dependencies current and degrade gracefully offline
  • Test suite built on Igniter.Test; CI golden test runs the generated workflow against a freshly generated phx.new app