> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.minitap.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Exploration and the screen map

> How Mini walks your app on a device, how to watch it live, how to read the screen map it draws, and what the map feeds.

Before Mini writes scenarios for an app it doesn't know yet, it explores it: it installs your build on a device, walks from screen to screen, and draws a map of what it found. This page covers when Mini explores, how to watch it, and how to read the map.

## When Mini explores

| When | What happens |
| - | - |
| **Onboarding** | Mini's first exploration of a new app. You watch the map fill in, then Mini drafts your first scenarios from it. |
| **In a Workbench draft** | When you ask for a flow Mini doesn't know on the current build, it looks at it on a device before it writes. See [Workbench](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/suite/workbench.md). |

Mini needs a copy of your app to explore: [upload a build](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/setup/upload-a-build.md), [connect the repository it builds from](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/setup/builds-from-repo.md), or give it the URL of your [web app](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/setup/web-apps.md). When an area needs a signed-in user, Mini signs in with a [test account](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/setup/test-accounts.md).

## During onboarding

Onboarding has two steps in the app sidebar: **Exploration**, then **Scenarios**.

**1. Mini starts exploring**

When you add an app, Mini starts exploring as soon as it has a build. Without one, the page says **Mini needs a build of your app**: add a build, or connect the repository Mini builds from, and it starts on its own. When Mini needs something first, like how to sign in, it says **Mini has a question before it starts**: click **Answer in the chat**.

**2. The map fills in**

New screens land on the map as Mini finds them. You can leave the page: the exploration keeps going, and the map is there when you come back.

**3. Steer it if you want**

Click a screen and choose **Explore from here**, or click a way on Mini hasn't taken yet and choose **Explore this way** or **Explore everything**. Each choice writes the request in the chat for you to send.

**4. Move on to scenarios**

When the map covers the app, click **Review scenarios** next to **Happy with the map?**. Nothing is locked: you can switch back to **Exploration** at any time.

On the **Scenarios** step, the board says **The map is ready to draft from**. Click **Draft all scenarios** and Mini drafts scenarios for the journeys on the map, using everything else it knows about your app. Each new scenario is a draft until Mini has checked it on a device, then onboarding ends with your first regression run. See the [quickstart](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/get-started/quickstart.md) for the whole flow.

## Watch Mini explore

While Mini explores, its device sits in a corner of the map, labeled **Exploring now** with a live dot. **Enlarge** it to follow each tap, **Shrink** it back, or **Hide** it to give the map the room. The exploration keeps running either way.

In a Workbench draft, the exploration shows as a row above the chat box. Click **Watch it live** to see the device, or **Stop** to end the exploration.

## Read the map

The map is a tree that starts from the screen your app opens on. Each box is a screen Mini stood on, and each line is the action that took it from one screen to the next.

| On the map | What it tells you |
| - | - |
| **Search screens…** | Finds a screen by name and moves the map to it. |
| The progress counts | How many **screens** Mini found, how many it **explored**, and how many ways on are still **pending**. Hover them for **Explore the rest**. |
| Platform tabs | When Mini explored more than one platform, each one has its own map: **iOS**, **Android**, **Web**. |
| **Latest find** | The screen Mini reached most recently. |

Click a screen to open its card:

* **Leads to** and **Reached from**: the screens on either side, one click away.
* What it takes to stand on the screen, for example being signed in.
* A way on marked **Failing**: Mini's last try at that action didn't work.
* When Mini couldn't get past a screen, the reason, and **Open what is blocking it** when a question of Mini's is in the way.
* **No capture** when Mini never got a picture of that screen.

Once onboarding is over, the Exploration step hands over to **Tests**. If your workspace has it, the map stays readable on its own **Map** page. That page is read-only: screen cards show where each screen leads and what leads to it, without the buttons that ask Mini something.

## What the map feeds

* **Scenario drafts.** Mini writes scenarios for the journeys it actually walked, with the screen names it saw. That's why a scenario drafted after an exploration uses your app's own words.
* **Coverage questions.** A short map shows where Mini stopped. A long chain with no branches usually means it never got out of a funnel like sign-up; a wide, shallow tree usually means it never got past sign-in. Both are worth fixing before you trust the coverage, often with a [test account](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/setup/test-accounts.md) or an answer to Mini's question.

## From the CLI

The `minitest` CLI reads the same map, which helps a coding agent write scenarios for screens that exist:

```bash theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"vesper"}}
# Every mapped screen, shallowest first
minitest --app myapp screens list

# The shape of the map, to see where exploration stopped
minitest --app myapp screens list --tree

# Only the screens Mini could not get past
minitest --app myapp screens list --blocked

# One screen: how to reach it, and where it leads
minitest --app myapp screens get "Checkout"
```

Add `--platform ios` to read one platform's map. An empty list means no exploration has run on a build of this app yet. See [Coding agents](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/integrations/cursor-and-claude.md) to set up the CLI.

## Next steps

> [card] [Workbench](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/suite/workbench.md)
>
> Where Mini's drafts are checked on a device before they reach your suite.

> [card] [What a scenario is](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/suite/anatomy.md)
>
> The shape of the scenarios Mini drafts from the map.

> [card] [Test accounts](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/setup/test-accounts.md)
>
> Let Mini explore past your sign-in.

> [card] [Ask Mini](https://www.minitap.ai/docs/minitest/get-started/working-with-mini.md)
>
> Ask for a new area to be covered, in plain language.


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