MEHTA(1) General Commands Manual MEHTA(1)
NAME
mehta — an engineer/writer based in pune; in continuous service since aut. 2019.
SYNOPSIS
mehta [-r reply] [-w write] [-s ship] [-v] project... mehta --about mehta --works | mehta --writing | mehta --reach
PORTRAIT
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subject · u. mehta · 256×128 density · 6 levels
DESCRIPTION
mehta(1) is a long-running daemon that produces small, careful software
and writing about it. it has been running, with reasonable uptime, since
the autumn of 2019. current release: v0.4.2.
by default mehta ships approximately one substantial artifact every
six weeks, with intermittent essays as the spirit allows. reply latency
to incoming mail is approximately 36 hours at p50, 72 hours at p99,
with honest answers preferred over fast ones.
this manual page documents the available options and the published
output to date (eleven works, fourteen essays).
OPTIONS
-r, --reply reply to incoming mail. default ~36h. -w, --write publish a new essay. not on schedule. -s, --ship ship a substantial object. ~6 wk cadence. -m, --maintain preferred over -s; see CAVEATS. -v, --verbose long sentences. default. -h, --help this page.
TOP — current process table
PID CMD STATE CPU% MEM TIME PRIORITY ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 001 threadwell running 18.2% 142MB 06:14 nice 002 fieldnotes running 4.6% 48MB 00:08 nice 003 marginalia frozen 0.0% 12MB --:-- nice 004 writing/finished running 2.1% 34MB 00:22 high 005 letters/reply running 1.4% 22MB 00:04 high 006 walks/evening running 0.8% 4MB 01:11 low ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 6 tasks: 5 running, 1 frozen, 0 blocked, 0 zombie load: 0.42 0.38 0.31 · status: nominal
FILES — published essays, latest five
┌──────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────┐
│ DATE │ TITLE │ SIZE │
├──────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┤
│ 2026-05-17 │ on knowing when a piece of writing is │ 12 pp │
│ │ finished │ │
│ 2026-04-02 │ the website as a small private museum of │ 8 pp │
│ │ the self │ │
│ 2026-01-28 │ notes on building software you have to │ 17 pp │
│ │ live with │ │
│ 2025-10-14 │ in praise of the long maintenance period │ 9 pp │
│ 2025-08-02 │ what i learned writing a tool for myself │ 6 pp │
└──────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────┘
nine further entries available on request.
AUTHOR
aarav mehta <hello@aarav.me>
┌─[•]─ writing read.aarav.me
├─[•]─ code github.com/aarav
├─[•]─ post pune, maharashtra, india · 411 0XX
└─[•]─ letters twice a quarter, by post
CAVEATS
mehta(1) is single-threaded. attempting to run multiple substantial
options in parallel will result in EAGAIN and a polite reply asking
for more time.
mehta(1) will refuse to publish writing on a schedule. see writing(7)
for the supported cadence (one piece “when there is something to say”).
SEE ALSO
threadwell(1), fieldnotes(1), marginalia(7),
writing(7), maintenance(8), reply-latency(5)
MEHTA v0.4.2 23 May 2026 MEHTA(1)
aarav@mehta:~$ █