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`crimes@0.9.1` — Visible Welcome on Bare `crimes`

Draft release notes for the GitHub Release tagged v0.9.1. The body below is what should go in the Releases page when you cut the tag — that triggers .github/workflows/release.yml and publishes to npm via Trusted Publishing.

TL;DR

Section titled “TL;DR”

crimes@0.9.1 is a UX-only patch: surface the three first-step commands (crimes init --agents, crimes init, crimes --help) somewhere users will actually see them.

  • Bare crimes prints a welcome banner. Running crimes with no arguments now prints a short banner with the version, three first-step commands, and a docs link — instead of Commander’s long help dump. crimes --help still renders the full usage output. crimes --version still prints just the version.
  • Post-install message expanded. Now includes the version and the same three commands. The script still runs, but npm 7+ swallows postinstall stdout / stderr by default, so most users will never see it. The bare-crimes banner is the reliable surface.

No new detectors, no schema change. Finding and ExplainReport wire formats are unchanged.

What shipped

Section titled “What shipped”

Why this exists

Section titled “Why this exists”

crimes@0.9.0 added a post-install script that printed:

crimes installed.
Run `crimes init --agents` in a repo to add crimes.config.json plus Claude Code and Codex skill files.

It was meant to nudge users toward the next step after npm install -g crimes. In practice it never fired in front of users, because npm 7+ runs lifecycle scripts with stdio piped to /dev/null by default — both stdout and stderr are silently suppressed. The script did run; the output just never reached the terminal. Users have to pass --foreground-scripts or set foreground-scripts=true in .npmrc to see it.

That’s not a bug we can fix in our script — it’s an npm policy decision. Rather than fight it, 0.9.1 adds a CLI path that does work.

Bare crimes welcome banner

Section titled “Bare crimes welcome banner”

Running crimes with no arguments now prints:

crimes 0.9.1


A crime scene investigator for your codebase. Built for agents, readable by humans.


Pick one to get started:
  crimes init --agents   config + Claude Code and Codex skills
  crimes init            just the config
  crimes --help          list all commands


Docs: https://crimes.sh

Previously, bare crimes printed Commander’s full help dump (a wall of command descriptions with the init --agents tip pinned at the bottom). The new banner is intentionally short and points at the three commands a new user actually needs.

  • crimes --help and crimes -h still render Commander’s usage output, unchanged.
  • crimes --version still prints just the version string.
  • crimes <unknown-command> still errors via Commander.
  • Scripts that rely on bare crimes for parseable output will see different text; the JSON output contract (--format json on every command) is unchanged.

Post-install message expanded

Section titled “Post-install message expanded”

The post-install message now reads:

crimes 0.9.1 installed.


Pick one to get started:
  crimes init --agents   config + Claude Code and Codex skills
  crimes init            just the config
  crimes --help          list all commands


Docs: https://crimes.sh

Version is read from the installed package.json at runtime. The CI / CRIMES_DISABLE_POSTINSTALL=1 escape hatch is unchanged.

To actually see this output on npm install -g crimes:

Terminal window
npm install -g --foreground-scripts crimes
# or set once in your global .npmrc:
echo "foreground-scripts=true" >> ~/.npmrc

What’s not in 0.9.1

Section titled “What’s not in 0.9.1”
  • No schema_version bump. Finding and ExplainReport wire formats are byte-identical to 0.9.0.
  • No new detectors. Detector count unchanged at 48.
  • No new commands. No new flags.
  • No package dependency changes.

Upgrading

Section titled “Upgrading”
Terminal window
npm install -g crimes@0.9.1
crimes --version  # 0.9.1
crimes            # new welcome banner

No action needed for existing users. Scripts that pipe bare crimes output should switch to crimes --help (stable help output) or a specific subcommand with --format json.

Section titled “Notable links”