Check — Is This Project Ready to Run?

One pass tells you whether a repo is actually set up to run, and exactly what's missing if not. The deliverable is a ✓/✗ checklist across localhost / staging / prod, built by discovering the project's own expected setup — never by reciting generic advice.

North star: no one should discover a missing .env key or an unwired environment by hitting a runtime error — this surfaces it up front, with the fix.

Step 0 — Discover what SHOULD exist (never hardcode)

1. Env contract — .env.example (or env.example): the list of vars the app expects. This is the source of truth for "what must be set."
2. Environments doc — the repo's README/CLAUDE.md should describe how localhost, staging, and prod are each configured (compose file, secret manager, deploy target). Missing this is itself a ✗.
3. Run path — make help / grep -E '^[a-z-]+:.*##' Makefile, docker-compose*.yml, or package.json scripts: the real targets to set up and run locally.
4. Cloud auth — does the local stack need an SSO/CLI login before it can start (AWS/GCP/Azure profile)?