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kazemcodeskazemcodes/skill-tree/skills/ponytail-debt/SKILL.md

ponytail-debt

Skill1 starsChanged 5 months agoMITView on GitHub

Harvest every `ponytail:` comment in the codebase into a debt ledger, so the deliberate shortcuts and deferrals ponytail leaves behind get tracked instead of rotting into "later means never". Use when the user says "ponytail debt", "/ponytail-debt", "what did ponytail defer", "list the shortcuts", "ponytail ledger", or "what did we mark to do later". One-shot report, changes nothing.

56 other projects use a version of this, 26 of them edited.

Adopted by

Most recently taken up by

Used with

Projects with it also use caveman-explore, investigate-first and 10 more.

Other files people use alongside this one.

Files found in the same public projects as a version of this one, more often than they turn up anywhere else. Each project counts once, large collections count for less, and this file's own repository is left out.
  • JuliusBrusseeSkill

    caveman-explore

    Read-only repository explorer for cold-start orientation, broad cross-file localization, or when a direct search failed. Skip it when the exact file or symbol is already named. Returns path:line citations only; its reads stay out of main context.

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  • JuliusBrusseeSkill

    investigate-first

    Diagnose ambiguous failures before editing. Use for unknown causes, intermittent behavior, performance regressions, or investigations needing evidence-ranked hypotheses.

    Also in 3 projects that use this

  • ryu111Skill

    migration

    Migration planning expertise. Use when replacing tools/frameworks, upgrading versions, migrating databases, or planning transitions. Contains strategies, compatibility analysis methods, and rollback planning.

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  • huangzidaSkill

    caveman-help

    Quick-reference card for all caveman modes, skills, and commands. One-shot display, not a persistent mode. Trigger: /caveman-help, "caveman help", "what caveman commands", "how do I use caveman".

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  • huangzidaSkill

    caveman-commit

    Ultra-compressed commit message generator. Cuts noise from commit messages while preserving intent and reasoning. Conventional Commits format. Subject ≤50 chars, body only when "why" isn't obvious. Use when user says "write a commit", "commit message", "generate commit", "/commit", or invokes /caveman-commit. Auto-triggers when staging changes.

    Also in 6 projects that use this

  • MicrosoftSkill

    impeccable

    Use when the user wants to design, redesign, shape, critique, audit, polish, simplify, harden, animate, or otherwise improve a frontend interface: websites, landing pages, dashboards, product UI, components, forms, settings, onboarding, empty states, and native iOS or Android screens. Handles UX review, hierarchy, layout, typography, color, motion, UX copy, accessibility, responsive behavior, edge cases, and capturing or documenting design systems (DESIGN.md, tokens). Also for making bland UI bolder, loud UI quieter, or ambitious visual effects. Not for backend-only or non-UI tasks.

    Also in 8 projects that use this

  • +2 more from huangzida
  • +2 more from JuliusBrussee

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

1 rule. 0 are common, 0 are distinctive, and 1 is very specific to this project.

  • 0

    Common

    Most of the 29 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 0

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 1

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Very specific:

    Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a ponytail: comment naming its ceiling and upgrade path.

    line 11

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 29 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a ponytail: comment naming its ceiling and upgrade path. This collects them into one ledger so a deferral can't quietly become permanent.

Scan

Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping node_modules, .git, and build output:

grep -rnE '(#|//) ?ponytail:' . (add other comment prefixes if your stack uses them)

Each hit is one ledger row. The comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions the convention out of the ledger.

Output

One row per marker, grouped by file:

<file>:<line>, <what was simplified>. ceiling: <the limit named>. upgrade: <the trigger to revisit>.

The convention is ponytail: <ceiling>, <upgrade path>, so pull the ceiling and the trigger straight from the comment. Want an owner per row too? add git blame -L<line>,<line>.

Flag the rot risk: any ponytail: comment that names no upgrade path or trigger gets a no-trigger tag, those are the ones that silently rot.

End with <N> markers, <M> with no trigger. Nothing found: No ponytail: debt. Clean ledger.

Boundaries

Reads and reports only, changes nothing. To persist it, ask and it writes the ledger to a file (e.g. PONYTAIL-DEBT.md). One-shot. "stop ponytail-debt" or "normal mode" to revert.

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