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Source attribution. This page reflects samples/side-project-resurrector/README.md in the usezombie repo. The zombie is currently README-only — it is a design reference, not yet an install target. Follow zombiectl install side-project-resurrector progress in the repo.
You have a 2022 side project. It doesn’t build. You haven’t touched it in 18 months. You can’t remember why you stopped. Point this zombie at the repo. It clones, tries to build, fails, diagnoses, updates, tries again. Loops until it builds or decides the project is beyond reviving. Opens a PR with what it changed.

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What it does

  • Clones the target repo into a fresh sandbox.
  • Reads README, package manifests, CI config to understand the stack.
  • Tries make, npm install, pnpm install, cargo build, go build — whatever the project uses.
  • When something breaks, diagnoses (version drift, deleted packages, changed APIs, flaky tests) and proposes a fix.
  • Iterates up to a time / step budget (default: 2 hours or 50 tool calls).
  • Opens a PR with a detailed description of what it changed and why.

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What it won’t do

  • Rewrite your project’s architecture.
  • Change public APIs.
  • Update major framework versions without an explicit --allow-major flag.
  • Touch .env, secrets, or anything that looks like a credential.

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Good fit

  • Projects with tests (success criteria is obvious).
  • Projects under ~100k LOC.
  • Ecosystems with deterministic builds: Node, Go, Rust, Python, Elixir.
  • Projects that used to build and now don’t.

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Bad fit

  • Monorepos with complex custom tooling.
  • Projects without any form of build verification.
  • Projects with external service dependencies (real DBs, real APIs) the zombie can’t spin up.

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Example run

zombie resurrect github.com/kishorec/my-old-saas-idea

[00:00] Cloning repo...
[00:02] Detected: Next.js 13 app, Node 18, TypeScript
[00:04] npm install fails: node-sass@6 requires Python 2.7
[00:08] node-sass was renamed to sass in 2020. Replacing dep.
[00:11] npm install succeeds
[00:13] npm run build fails: module 'cluster-key-slot' not found
[00:15] Transitive dep of redis@3; bumping redis to 4.x
...
[01:14] npm run build succeeds. npm test passes.
[01:15] Opening PR: "Resurrect: update 2022-era deps, restore build"

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Tools and policy

Authored as one SKILL.md + one TRIGGER.md. The tools the zombie invokes — git, shell, github — are named in TRIGGER.md. Policy lives as prose inside SKILL.md: “read-only against your codebase architecture; allow dependency bumps within minor versions; require an explicit --allow-major flag for major bumps; never touch .env, secrets, or anything that looks like a credential; open a PR with a plain-language explanation of every change.” Credential: a GitHub token with repo scope. Worker placement is cloud with at least 2 GiB RAM. See samples/side-project-resurrector/README.md in the repo for the full manifest.