# DietrichGebert/ponytail

> A skill for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI, OpenCode) that enforces writing only the minimum necessary code via a laziness ladder: YAGNI, reuse, stdlib, native features. Benchmarks show ~54% less code and ~20% cheaper without losing safety.

- Magnitude: 4.7 out of 10 — Steady
- Stars: 179,897 total · +725 stars measured 2026-10-29, 00:03–16:53 UTC, ≈ 1,020 by evening
- Star trust: star growth looks organic
- Category: AI agents · Language: JavaScript · License: MIT · Created: 2026-06-12 · Last push: 2026-10-29
- GitHub: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail · Homepage: https://ponytail.dev · Page: https://gitnova.dev/en/r/DietrichGebert/ponytail

## Useful for

- Install the plugin in Claude Code so the agent stops over-building features
- Cut the size and cost of agent edits in an existing repository
- Review an agent's diff with /ponytail-review for unnecessary code

## Why it’s here

- Star-counter measurements on 2026-10-29 (UTC), 00:03–16:53: 179172 → 179897 stars (+725). This is the change over that interval.
- Estimated end-of-day forecast: about +1,020 stars, using observed gains and the previous day.
- GitHub Trending this month: #18, +32,691 stars.
- About 100 forks a day — people are taking the code.

## Star trust

Star growth looks organic.

Star-trust labels are heuristics based on the repository’s behavior, not a check of every stargazer.

## Numbers

- Forks: 9,863
- Issues and pull requests: 1,306
- Watchers: 414
- Average over the last week: 957 per day
- Usual pace: 1,133 per day
- Stars in the last hour (measured): 49
- Latest release: v5.3.3 (2026-10-29)

## Stars per day, last 30 days (oldest → newest, today is partial)

2026-09-30 … 2026-10-29: 1089, 1390, 1271, 1754, 1433, 989, 865, 864, 1190, 1037, 814, 712, 779, 949, 887, 848, 756, 1093, 889, 1127, 1934, 1932, 1849, 1044, 729, 754, 1078, 1016, 1060, 725

## Magnitude by day, last 14 days

10-16 4.6, 10-17 4.8, 10-18 5.1, 10-19 5.4, 10-20 5.2, 10-21 5.9, 10-22 6.3, 10-23 5.9, 10-24 4.7, 10-25 4.4, 10-26 4.8, 10-27 4.8, 10-28 4.8, 10-29 4.7

## Hacker News

- Ponytail: Lazy Senior Engineer Skill — 33 points, 20 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49592706

## Spotted in now

- GitHub Trending this month: #18, +32,691 stars

## More in this category

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   Full card: https://gitnova.dev/en/r/HKUDS/DeepTutor.md
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3. **unclebob/ub-mode** — 8.1 · Breakout · AI agents · +726 stars measured 2026-10-29, 00:02–16:52 UTC, ≈ 1,035 by evening
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4. **elayadesign/ai-design-skills** — 7.7 · Breakout · AI agents · +825 stars measured 2026-10-29, 00:02–16:52 UTC, ≈ 1,181 by evening
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   Full card: https://gitnova.dev/en/r/elayadesign/ai-design-skills.md
5. **milind-soni/OpenMausBot** — 7.7 · Breakout · AI agents · TypeScript · +260 stars measured 2026-10-29, 10:43–16:52 UTC, ≈ 425 by evening
   ,
   Full card: https://gitnova.dev/en/r/milind-soni/OpenMausBot.md

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Magnitude (0–10) measures how fast and how unusually interest in a repository is growing right now. It is not a quality score.
Days are UTC. “So far today” is a fact; “expected by the end of the day” is a forecast.
Summaries and use cases are written by an LLM (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash) from the README and may be inaccurate: verify specific claims (benchmarks, speed, hardware) in the repository itself.
Data as of 2026-10-29 17:07 UTC, updated every 30 minutes.