panel-kit

A tiny, dependency-free terminal status board for Windows + PowerShell. You describe what to check in a plain markdown table (a "manifest") — a file's age, a regex count, a live gauge like free RAM — and panel.ps1 prints a coloured cockpit view on demand. No window, no server, no timer, no background process: it runs when you run it and prints once.

  HOUSEKEEPING PANEL   Tue 08 Sep 16:58

  ── APP ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   ● probes.ps1 freshness      0.0d old (probes.ps1)
   ● recent log errors         1  (max 5)
   ● example hook               WARN: this is a placeholder finding
  ── SYSTEM ──────────────────────────────────────────────────
   ● hosts file                present
   ● stop flag                 absent
  ── MACHINE ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
   ● ram                ████████░░  82%  2.8 GB free of 15.4 GB

  0 RED / 1 AMBER / 5 GREEN      ▲ = changed since last look

Install

Requires Windows + PowerShell (ships with Windows 10/11 — PowerShell 5.1 or newer, no install needed). Git Bash / WSL work too once installed, via the extensionless shim below.

1. Clone or download this folder anywhere.
2. From inside it, run:

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\setup.ps1
   

   (-ExecutionPolicy Bypass only affects this one command — it tells PowerShell to run this specific script even if your system normally blocks unsigned .ps1 files. It doesn't change any setting permanently.) This places a panel command in %USERPROFILE%\bin\ and adds that folder to your user PATH (only if it isn't already there — safe to re-run, never overwrites a file it didn't create).
3. Open a new PowerShell, Command Prompt (cmd.exe), or Git Bash window (PATH changes don't apply to windows already open), then run:

   panel -Raw
   

   All three shells work — setup.ps1 installs a .cmd shim for PowerShell/Command Prompt and a separate extensionless shim for Git Bash. You should see the 6 example lanes from PANEL.template.md (shown above).

If you'd rather not touch your PATH, run it directly instead: powershell -File panel.ps1 -Raw from inside the kit folder, any time.

Write your own manifest

Copy PANEL.template.md to PANEL.md (or any name) and edit the ## Lanes table. One row = one lane:

| lane | group | source | rule | say | open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| my log's errors | app | `.\logs\*.log` | `count:ERROR:0:5` | "check the newest log" | `.\logs\` |

Then run it: panel -Manifest .\my-manifest.md -Raw (or without -Raw for the coloured view). panel.ps1's default manifest (no -Manifest flag) is PANEL.template.md next to it — most people just edit that file in place instead.

The six rule kinds

Rule	Fires GREEN when...	Example
mtime>Nd	the newest file matching source is younger than N days (AMBER past N/2)	mtime>7d
count:<regex>[:min[:max]]	the regex's match count in source is within [min,max]	count:ERROR:0:5
hook	source (a PowerShell script) prints no additionalContext, or only clean lines	—
exists	source exists on disk	—
absent	source does not exist (for a "stop" flag file)	—
probe:<name>	the named branch in probes.ps1 returns GREEN	probe:ram

If source in a count: rule contains a wildcard (* or ?), only the single newest matching file is scanned — not every file the glob touches. Same behavior for mtime>Nd.

Adding a probe

A probe:<name> rule is a gauge — it can return a percentage (drawn as a bar) as well as a colour and status line, for a live measurement like RAM or disk that isn't really "about a file." Open probes.ps1, add a new case in the switch block (there's a commented example already), then reference it from your manifest as probe:yourname. No other file needs to change.

Files in this kit

File	What it is
panel.ps1	the engine — parses a manifest, evaluates each lane, prints the board
probes.ps1	the ram / disk / git gauges, plus a stub showing how to add your own
PANEL.template.md	a working example manifest exercising all six rule kinds
setup.ps1	idempotent installer — places the panel command on your PATH
skills/panel/SKILL.md	a Claude Code skill that scouts a topic and drafts a manifest for you (optional — only relevant if you use Claude Code)

FAQ / troubleshooting

panel isn't found after running setup.ps1. Open a genuinely new terminal window — PATH changes only apply to windows opened after the change.

I use Git Bash, not PowerShell. setup.ps1 places both panel.cmd (for cmd.exe / PowerShell) and an extensionless panel (for Bash) into %USERPROFILE%\bin\ — Bash's command search doesn't fall back through PATHEXT the way cmd.exe does, so a bare panel.cmd alone would be invisible to it. Both point at the same panel.ps1.

A lane is stuck on "eval error: ...". Your manifest row's rule cell doesn't match one of the six shapes above exactly — check for a typo (e.g. mtime>7 d with a stray space, or a missing colon in count:).

setup.ps1 warns instead of installing. You already have a panel.cmd or panel in %USERPROFILE%\bin\ that isn't this kit's — it refuses to overwrite a file it didn't create. Remove or rename the existing file first if you want this kit to manage it.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Credit required via the copyright notice.