{"slug": "ponytail", "name": "ponytail", "category": "ai-coding", "category_name": "AI coding tools", "description": "An agent skill for AI coding assistants that aims to keep responses terse and edits small.", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 5.4, "rising": 3.67, "first": "2026-07-30", "latest": "2026-10-27", "why": "Recommended as a skill for Claude Code and other agent harnesses that keeps output terse and code edits small, often used alongside Superpowers.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Works with others", "Terse, small edits"], "caveat": "Modest effect", "short_quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/dietrichgebert/ponytail", "official_url": "https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail", "pricing": "unknown", "aliases": ["ponytail", "Ponytail"], "verdict": [{"text": "Recommended as a skill for Claude Code and other agent harnesses", "cites": [{"id": 804061632, "item_id": 50253852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50253852", "by": "ranwhatcom", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I noticed improvements after installing the pony tail skill", "excerpt": "I noticed my usage spiking a lot last week but I ultimately thought I was just being negligent, but now it seems it went back to normal. Also which effort level and model are you using? It might be worth taking a look at the skills you have, I noticed improvements after installing the pony tail skill - https://github.com/dietrichgebert/ponytail", "context": "Claude subscriber", "use_case": "reducing Claude usage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What shenanigans is Anthropic pulling with Claude subs this time?"}, {"id": 787612466, "item_id": 49225779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225779", "by": "Ovid", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my personal setup is Claude Code with Superpowers, Ponytail, PAAD", "excerpt": "Many people trying to develop software treat AI as magic pixie dust they can sprinkle on a problem to make it go away. For coding, this as \"AI-led engineering.\" The literature is rife with the failures of this. Instead, I argue that we need to bring back well-known engineering best practices and treat AI as a tool to support them. This is \"engineering-led AI.\" I created a free, online tutorial to explain this approac", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to write production-quality code with AI"}, {"id": 790330802, "item_id": 49395675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395675", "by": "sejje", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use superpowers and ponytail a lot.", "excerpt": "It may be ipython making it work well with ds flash, too. I haven't really run many separate experiments, to be honest. I also like prime-agent's way of handling sessions better than any other harness i've used. You can run multiple agents from one instance, although the scoping could be better. But they can interact with past sessions, so preserving context isn't as important all the time. I just tell them to search", "context": "", "use_case": "agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "A week of using Codex more than Claude"}]}, {"text": " that keeps output terse and code edits small,", "cites": [{"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}, {"id": 785753744, "item_id": 49109609, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49109609", "by": "Kuraj", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You might be interested in Ponytail, which seems to address this specific problem", "excerpt": "You might be interested in Ponytail, which seems to address this specific problem: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail", "context": "", "use_case": "reducing owned code from AI agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding agents should optimize for less owned code"}]}, {"text": " often used alongside Superpowers.", "cites": [{"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}, {"id": 790330802, "item_id": 49395675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395675", "by": "sejje", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use superpowers and ponytail a lot.", "excerpt": "It may be ipython making it work well with ds flash, too. I haven't really run many separate experiments, to be honest. I also like prime-agent's way of handling sessions better than any other harness i've used. You can run multiple agents from one instance, although the scoping could be better. But they can interact with past sessions, so preserving context isn't as important all the time. I just tell them to search", "context": "", "use_case": "agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "A week of using Codex more than Claude"}, {"id": 787612466, "item_id": 49225779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225779", "by": "Ovid", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my personal setup is Claude Code with Superpowers, Ponytail, PAAD", "excerpt": "Many people trying to develop software treat AI as magic pixie dust they can sprinkle on a problem to make it go away. For coding, this as \"AI-led engineering.\" The literature is rife with the failures of this. Instead, I argue that we need to bring back well-known engineering best practices and treat AI as a tool to support them. This is \"engineering-led AI.\" I created a free, online tutorial to explain this approac", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to write production-quality code with AI"}]}, {"text": " The main caveat is that its benefit is modest and hard to isolate, with users saying it helps \"somewhat\" or \"may have contributed\" to good results.", "cites": [{"id": 794576673, "item_id": 49661042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661042", "by": "kriskrunch", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "excerpt": "Open question, how does this instruction in agent-rules.md look? \"Cap large/unknown command output: `COMMAND 2>&1 | head -c 4000`. Never stream full logs, tests, or large files.\" I use that instead of RTK. Empirically, I found RTK makes my agents run longer to complete similar tasks. Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent token savings", "switched_from": "", "story": "RTK reports token savings, but our cost benchmarks disagree"}, {"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Works with others", "summary": "Commenters run it together with other skills like Superpowers, Caveman and PAAD.", "quotes": [{"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}, {"id": 790330802, "item_id": 49395675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395675", "by": "sejje", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use superpowers and ponytail a lot.", "excerpt": "It may be ipython making it work well with ds flash, too. I haven't really run many separate experiments, to be honest. I also like prime-agent's way of handling sessions better than any other harness i've used. You can run multiple agents from one instance, although the scoping could be better. But they can interact with past sessions, so preserving context isn't as important all the time. I just tell them to search", "context": "", "use_case": "agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "A week of using Codex more than Claude"}, {"id": 787612466, "item_id": 49225779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225779", "by": "Ovid", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my personal setup is Claude Code with Superpowers, Ponytail, PAAD", "excerpt": "Many people trying to develop software treat AI as magic pixie dust they can sprinkle on a problem to make it go away. For coding, this as \"AI-led engineering.\" The literature is rife with the failures of this. Instead, I argue that we need to bring back well-known engineering best practices and treat AI as a tool to support them. This is \"engineering-led AI.\" I created a free, online tutorial to explain this approac", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to write production-quality code with AI"}]}, {"label": "Terse, small edits", "summary": "It keeps agent output terse and edits small, which suits users with that specific problem.", "quotes": [{"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}, {"id": 785753744, "item_id": 49109609, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49109609", "by": "Kuraj", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You might be interested in Ponytail, which seems to address this specific problem", "excerpt": "You might be interested in Ponytail, which seems to address this specific problem: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail", "context": "", "use_case": "reducing owned code from AI agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding agents should optimize for less owned code"}]}, {"label": "Usage improvements", "summary": "Users noticed improvements, including with heavy usage and long-running agents.", "quotes": [{"id": 804061632, "item_id": 50253852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50253852", "by": "ranwhatcom", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I noticed improvements after installing the pony tail skill", "excerpt": "I noticed my usage spiking a lot last week but I ultimately thought I was just being negligent, but now it seems it went back to normal. Also which effort level and model are you using? It might be worth taking a look at the skills you have, I noticed improvements after installing the pony tail skill - https://github.com/dietrichgebert/ponytail", "context": "Claude subscriber", "use_case": "reducing Claude usage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What shenanigans is Anthropic pulling with Claude subs this time?"}, {"id": 794576673, "item_id": 49661042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661042", "by": "kriskrunch", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "excerpt": "Open question, how does this instruction in agent-rules.md look? \"Cap large/unknown command output: `COMMAND 2>&1 | head -c 4000`. Never stream full logs, tests, or large files.\" I use that instead of RTK. Empirically, I found RTK makes my agents run longer to complete similar tasks. Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent token savings", "switched_from": "", "story": "RTK reports token savings, but our cost benchmarks disagree"}]}, {"label": "Popular, easy to try", "summary": "It is gaining popularity on GitHub trending, and skills like it are easy to try.", "quotes": [{"id": 793452608, "item_id": 49590788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590788", "by": "TomEleff", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "no affiliation, just like it", "excerpt": "Ah! The GitHub trending repos usually has some rapidly rising skills projects, https://github.com/trending. https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail is a good example for one gaining lots of popularity now (no affiliation, just like it). OpenAI, anthropic, lots of companies building coding agent tools, also share skills publicly. Skills can feel like a big productivity boost at first, but it's good to remember lots", "context": "", "use_case": "coding agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best place to learn about skills and AI for coding in general"}, {"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Modest effect", "summary": "Users describe the benefit as partial and hard to separate from other tools in their setup.", "quotes": [{"id": 794576673, "item_id": 49661042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661042", "by": "kriskrunch", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "excerpt": "Open question, how does this instruction in agent-rules.md look? \"Cap large/unknown command output: `COMMAND 2>&1 | head -c 4000`. Never stream full logs, tests, or large files.\" I use that instead of RTK. Empirically, I found RTK makes my agents run longer to complete similar tasks. Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent token savings", "switched_from": "", "story": "RTK reports token savings, but our cost benchmarks disagree"}, {"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}]}, {"label": "Personal workflow", "summary": "A commenter warns that skills reflect one person's way of working, which may not suit everyone.", "quotes": [{"id": 793452608, "item_id": 49590788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590788", "by": "TomEleff", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "no affiliation, just like it", "excerpt": "Ah! The GitHub trending repos usually has some rapidly rising skills projects, https://github.com/trending. https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail is a good example for one gaining lots of popularity now (no affiliation, just like it). OpenAI, anthropic, lots of companies building coding agent tools, also share skills publicly. Skills can feel like a big productivity boost at first, but it's good to remember lots", "context": "", "use_case": "coding agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best place to learn about skills and AI for coding in general"}]}], "who": [{"by": "ranwhatcom", "context": "Claude subscriber", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50253852", "date": "2026-10-27"}], "tags": ["for Claude Code users", "for reducing agent verbosity", "pairs with Superpowers"], "use_cases": ["reducing claude usage", "agent token savings", "coding agent skills", "agent skills", "keep outputs terse", "reducing owned code from ai agents"], "compared": [{"slug": "superpowers", "name": "Superpowers", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50252654", "title": "Ask HN: What shenanigans is Anthropic pulling with Claude subs this time?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49656471", "title": "RTK reports token savings, but our cost benchmarks disagree", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590168", "title": "Ask HN: What's the best place to learn about skills and AI for coding in general", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393051", "title": "A week of using Codex more than Claude", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337602", "title": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225778", "title": "How to write production-quality code with AI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804061632, "item_id": 50253852, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50253852", "by": "ranwhatcom", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I noticed improvements after installing the pony tail skill", "excerpt": "I noticed my usage spiking a lot last week but I ultimately thought I was just being negligent, but now it seems it went back to normal. Also which effort level and model are you using? It might be worth taking a look at the skills you have, I noticed improvements after installing the pony tail skill - https://github.com/dietrichgebert/ponytail", "context": "Claude subscriber", "use_case": "reducing Claude usage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What shenanigans is Anthropic pulling with Claude subs this time?"}, {"id": 794576673, "item_id": 49661042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661042", "by": "kriskrunch", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "excerpt": "Open question, how does this instruction in agent-rules.md look? \"Cap large/unknown command output: `COMMAND 2>&1 | head -c 4000`. Never stream full logs, tests, or large files.\" I use that instead of RTK. Empirically, I found RTK makes my agents run longer to complete similar tasks. Ponytail and Caveman seem to help somewhat.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent token savings", "switched_from": "", "story": "RTK reports token savings, but our cost benchmarks disagree"}, {"id": 793452608, "item_id": 49590788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590788", "by": "TomEleff", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "no affiliation, just like it", "excerpt": "Ah! The GitHub trending repos usually has some rapidly rising skills projects, https://github.com/trending. https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail is a good example for one gaining lots of popularity now (no affiliation, just like it). OpenAI, anthropic, lots of companies building coding agent tools, also share skills publicly. Skills can feel like a big productivity boost at first, but it's good to remember lots", "context": "", "use_case": "coding agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best place to learn about skills and AI for coding in general"}, {"id": 790330802, "item_id": 49395675, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49395675", "by": "sejje", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use superpowers and ponytail a lot.", "excerpt": "It may be ipython making it work well with ds flash, too. I haven't really run many separate experiments, to be honest. I also like prime-agent's way of handling sessions better than any other harness i've used. You can run multiple agents from one instance, although the scoping could be better. But they can interact with past sessions, so preserving context isn't as important all the time. I just tell them to search", "context": "", "use_case": "agent skills", "switched_from": "", "story": "A week of using Codex more than Claude"}, {"id": 789436498, "item_id": 49339781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339781", "by": "qup", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small.", "excerpt": "I've found it to be great for planning code changes (or new projects). I use the superpowers plug-in which I think guides the planning. Then I switch models (to luna) before implementation. I find this combo nearly always does what I want. I also use a skill called ponytail, its goal is to keep things terse and edits small. It may have contributed to the successes above. I like that skills are easy to try out, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "keep outputs terse", "switched_from": "", "story": "GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%"}, {"id": 787612466, "item_id": 49225779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225779", "by": "Ovid", "date": "2026-08-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my personal setup is Claude Code with Superpowers, Ponytail, PAAD", "excerpt": "Many people trying to develop software treat AI as magic pixie dust they can sprinkle on a problem to make it go away. For coding, this as \"AI-led engineering.\" The literature is rife with the failures of this. Instead, I argue that we need to bring back well-known engineering best practices and treat AI as a tool to support them. This is \"engineering-led AI.\" I created a free, online tutorial to explain this approac", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to write production-quality code with AI"}, {"id": 785753744, "item_id": 49109609, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49109609", "by": "Kuraj", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You might be interested in Ponytail, which seems to address this specific problem", "excerpt": "You might be interested in Ponytail, which seems to address this specific problem: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail", "context": "", "use_case": "reducing owned code from AI agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI coding agents should optimize for less owned code"}]}