Ponytail
Ponytail makes Claude build the smallest complete change for coding tasks and checks your changes or your whole repository for bugs, risks and unneeded code.
What is Ponytail?
Ponytail is a pack of skills for Claude Code that keeps Claude to the smallest change that completely solves a coding task, with replies short enough to understand on a single read. The pack contains the working mode itself, a review for individual changes, an audit for the whole repository, a list of deliberately deferred shortcuts, a display of benchmark results, a quick reference and a heavily compressed reply mode called caveman.
You start the working mode with '/ponytail'. The '/ponytail lite' level builds what you requested and mentions the smaller alternative in one line. The default level delivers the smallest complete change, a check wherever the logic calls for one, and a reply listing what was left out and any risks. With '/ponytail ultra', Claude goes further: it challenges whether the requested work is needed at all and raises objections before writing any code. The chosen level stays active until you switch or the session ends.
Review, audit and the debt list only read and never modify code. The audit sorts findings by urgency, backs each one with a concrete case and proposes the smallest fix, preferring one that removes code. Ponytail suits developers who work with Claude Code and want changes to stay small and easy to verify. You install the pack with 'npx skills add dietrichgebert/ponytail'.
Who it is for
Developers and engineering teams who code with Claude Code and want small, easy to verify changes along with regular code audits.
Use cases
- You take over someone else's repository and want to know where bugs, security holes and dead code sit before you change anything.
- Before merging, a change should be checked for logic errors, missing tests and lines that are not needed.
- Your team left deliberate shortcuts in the code and needs an overview of which ones have no trigger for revisiting them.
What Ponytail does
Working mode with three levels
With '/ponytail', '/ponytail lite' or '/ponytail ultra' you set how strictly Claude limits scope, from naming the smaller option to objecting before it builds anything.
Review of a change
'/ponytail-review' checks a diff for logic errors, security, behavior under load, missing tests, speed and unneeded lines. Each finding states what goes wrong and how you fix it.
Audit of the whole repository
'/ponytail-audit' produces a numbered report grouped into Must fix, Should fix and Nice to have, with at most 20 findings, a verdict and a list of the parts it did not check.
Ledger of deferred shortcuts
'/ponytail-debt' collects every comment marked as a shortcut in your code, with its limit and the trigger for revisiting it, and flags entries that name no trigger.
Benchmark and quick reference
'/ponytail-gain' shows the savings the authors measured as a bar chart, '/ponytail-help' lists levels, skills and commands. Neither changes anything in your project.
Compressed reply mode caveman
With '/caveman' Claude answers without filler words or pleasantries, in several levels. For security warnings and irreversible actions the mode switches back to clear language.
Say this to activate the skill
"Audit the whole repository for bugs and unneeded code.""Review this change before I merge it.""Show me all the shortcuts we deferred.""Switch to ponytail mode and build only what is needed." Install
npx skills add dietrichgebert/ponytail
The command installs every skill in the pack from the author's repository (Vercel skills CLI, needs Node.js), add -g for all projects. We do not host a copy: updates come straight from the author. Need help with setup? How to install skills →
Checked automatically
- Automated check on 2026-11-10 (revision 96608e0): 10 files in the skill folder read by pattern search. It found no hidden characters, no instructions to override rules, no download-and-run and no access to credentials.
Independent checks on skills.sh, as of 10 Nov 2026
| Gen Agent Trust Hub | Pass |
|---|---|
| Socket | Pass |
| Snyk | Pass |
Good to know
- According to their instructions, audit and review write their reports in simple English.
- The figures from '/ponytail-gain' come from the authors' benchmark of 39 tasks and explicitly do not describe your own repository.
- Ponytail marks deliberate simplifications with comments in the code. Plan to go through these entries regularly with '/ponytail-debt'.
- The check is an automated pattern search, not a security guarantee, and reads the skill folder only. The command always installs the author's current version; later versions have not been reviewed by us.
Frequently asked questions about Ponytail
What is Ponytail?
Ponytail is a pack of skills for Claude Code that has Claude build the smallest complete change for coding tasks. It also includes a review for changes, an audit for whole repositories, a ledger of deferred shortcuts, a benchmark display, a quick reference and the caveman reply mode.
How do I install Ponytail?
You install Ponytail with the command 'npx skills add dietrichgebert/ponytail'. The command installs all skills of the pack at once. Afterwards you start the working mode with '/ponytail' or open the overview with '/ponytail-help'.
Is Ponytail free?
Ponytail is released under the MIT license, so you can use it freely. Using Claude itself runs through your own access.
Does Ponytail change my code?
Ponytail only changes code in its working mode, where Claude carries out your task. Review, audit, debt ledger, benchmark display and quick reference only read and produce a report. The debt ledger is written to a file only if you ask for it.
Who is Ponytail for?
Ponytail is for developers who work with Claude Code and want to keep changes from growing larger than needed. The audit also helps when you start working in unfamiliar or long grown code.
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About this skill
Ponytail comes from dietrichgebert and is an open-source project maintained by its author and community.
Author: dietrichgebert / github.com. Source: github.com/dietrichgebert/ponytail. Licence: MIT.
Curated by Collective Brain, an AI and automation digital agency from Hamburg, together with WhiteFox Automations. More vetted skills in the skills catalog.
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