Blueprints and milestones

What this accomplishes

The project intelligence in Miton: the blueprint graph, the milestone tracker, the drift detection, the orientation panel integration, the suggestion-strip signals, the project plan and the project status.

Track your project plan, milestones, and when the codebase drifts from what you intended. The blueprint graph, milestone tracker, and drift alerts live in the Project area and suggestion strip.

See also transparency and approvals.

Current availability

This page documents behaviour verified in Miton development builds. Miton is still pre-release and is not publicly downloadable; invited beta users will receive a signed desktop build with automatic updates.

Before you start

• A Miton development build and an active project containing source code.
• A connected model. Trust the project before allowing file, terminal or Git actions.

The blueprint graph

The blueprint graph is a CoW panel that shows the project’s structure as a graph. The nodes are the project’s components (services, modules, packages, libraries); the edges are the dependencies between the components. The graph is auto-generated from the project’s imports, requires, and references; the user can edit the graph manually.

The graph supports:

• Node types — service, module, package, library, database, external service. The node type determines the node’s icon and the node’s properties.
• Edge types — depends-on, imports, calls, references, owns. The edge type determines the edge’s colour and the edge’s label.
• Filters — the user can filter the graph by node type, by edge type, by name, by file path.
• Layouts — the user can pick a layout (force-directed, hierarchical, radial, manual). The layout is preserved per project.
• Export — the user can export the graph as JSON, Mermaid, or a static image.

The graph is per project. The graph is auto-updated when the project changes (the auto-update is debounced; the default debounce window is 60 seconds). The user can manually trigger a re-scan from the panel menu.

The graph is the right shape for understanding the project at a high level. The graph is not the right shape for navigating to a specific file; the user uses the file tree or the symbol search for that.

The milestone tracker

The milestone tracker is a CoW panel that shows the project’s milestones, the tasks within each milestone, and the progress through the tasks. The tracker is per project; the tracker is auto-generated from the project’s milestone definitions.

The tracker supports:

• Milestone hierarchy — milestones can have parent milestones. A user can break a large milestone into sub-milestones.
• Task hierarchy — tasks can have parent tasks. A user can break a large task into sub-tasks.
• Status — a task can be pending, in-progress, blocked, completed, or cancelled. The status is a per-task value.
• Owner — a task can have an owner. The owner is a person (the user) or an agent (the sub-agent system).
• Dependencies — a task can depend on other tasks. The dependency is a graph; the tracker shows the dependency graph.
• Due date — a task can have a due date. The tracker surfaces the upcoming due dates.

The tracker is the right shape for the user’s project plan. The tracker is not the right shape for the user’s day-to-day task list; the user can use a third-party tool for that, and the agent can sync the third-party tool’s state into the tracker.

The drift detection

The drift detection is a feature that surfaces when the code and the plan have diverged. The drift detection runs in the background; the drift detection surfaces a signal in the suggestion strip and in the orientation panel when the drift crosses a threshold.

The drift detection has three categories:

• File drift — a file the plan said would not be changed has been changed. The drift is a positive drift (the user changed the file) or a negative drift (the user removed the file).
• Milestone drift — a milestone’s completion percentage has diverged from the plan. The drift is a positive drift (more done than planned) or a negative drift (less done than planned).
• Dependency drift — a dependency the plan said would be added has been added, or a dependency the plan said would be removed has been removed. The drift is a positive drift (added as planned) or a negative drift (removed as planned).

The drift detection thresholds are configurable in Settings under “Project intelligence → Drift thresholds” (default: any drift triggers a signal).

The orientation panel integration

The orientation panel is a CoW panel that aggregates signals from every subsystem into one view. The orientation panel shows:

• Active project — the current project, the current branch, the uncommitted files, the active chronicle, the pending approvals.
• Milestones — the current milestone, the task progress, the blocked items.
• Drift count — the number of drift items, the severity breakdown.
• Safety findings — the number of safety findings, the severity breakdown.
• Cost — today’s spend, the budget, the headroom.
• Sub-agents — running, queued, failed, completed recently.
• Worktrees — all worktrees, the ages, the last commits, the cleanup candidates.
• Things you might do next — actionable chips (the actionable bit; the chips answer “what should I do?”).

The orientation panel is documented in detail in the transparency page.

The suggestion-strip signals

The suggestion strip is the row of chips the user sees at the bottom of the chat input. The suggestion strip is populated by signals from every subsystem; the project intelligence contributes three signals:

• Drift chip — surfaces when the drift detection has crossed a threshold. The chip text is “Update the plan to match the code (N drift items)” or similar.
• Milestone chip — surfaces when the current milestone has a blocked task. The chip text is “Resolve the blocked task on the current milestone” or similar.
• Plan chip — surfaces when the user has been working on a task for a long time. The chip text is “Update the milestone tracker (the current task has been in progress for N days)” or similar.

The user can click a chip to see the underlying signal; the user can dismiss the chip with a dismiss action. The dismiss action is a per-chip dismiss; the dismiss is preserved for the session.

The project plan and the project status

The project plan is the source-of-truth for the project. The plan is a markdown file in .miton/plan.md. The plan is read by the agent on every session open; the plan is updated by the user (or by the agent on the user’s behalf).

The project status is the read-only view of the project’s current state. The status is generated from the git history, the milestone tracker, the drift detection, and the agent’s recent activity. The status is shown in the orientation panel.

The project plan and the project status are distinct. The plan is the user’s intent; the status is the project’s reality. The drift detection is the delta between the plan and the status.

What the project intelligence does not cover

The project intelligence does not cover:

• Time tracking — the project intelligence tracks the milestone completion, not the time spent on each task. The user can use a third-party time-tracking tool; the agent can sync the time-tracking tool’s state into the project status.
• Resource planning — the project intelligence tracks the milestone completion per owner, not the resource allocation across owners. The user can use a third-party resource planning tool.
• Cross-project intelligence — the project intelligence is per project. The user can configure a global intelligence across all projects in Settings under “Project intelligence → Global intelligence”.

The project intelligence focuses on the per-project signals the user can act on. The cross-project intelligence extends this across all projects.

What success looks like

The project intelligence is a set of features that track the user’s project plan, the project’s milestones, and the drift between the plan and the code.

The blueprint graph is the right shape for understanding the project at a high level. The graph is auto-generated from the project’s imports and references; the user can edit the graph manually.

The milestone tracker is the right shape for the project plan. The tracker is auto-generated from the project’s milestone definitions; the user can edit the tracker manually.

The drift detection is the right shape for catching the divergence between the plan and the code. The drift detection runs in the background; the drift detection surfaces a signal in the suggestion strip and in the orientation panel.

The orientation panel is the right shape for seeing the project at a glance. The panel aggregates signals from every subsystem; the panel is the user’s “where am I?” view.

Common failures and recovery

• Confirm the correct project and branch are active.
• Check the model connection and the permission request shown in Chat.
• Keep the exact error before retrying; use Code troubleshooting when the failure persists.

Related next action

Open Code troubleshooting for recovery steps and diagnostic paths.