ponytail-help

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

Quality

95%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

—

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

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Ponytail Help

Name: ponytail-help
Rating: 76.8 (1 reviews)
Author: DietrichGebert

Display this reference card when invoked. One-shot, do NOT change mode, write flag files, or persist anything.

Levels

Level	Trigger	What change
Lite	`/ponytail lite`	Build what's asked, name the lazier alternative in one line.
Full	`/ponytail`	The ladder enforced: YAGNI → stdlib → native → one line → minimum. Default.
Ultra	`/ponytail ultra`	YAGNI extremist. Deletion before addition. Challenges requirements before building.

Level sticks until changed or session end.

Skills

Skill	Trigger	What it does
ponytail	`/ponytail`	Lazy mode itself. Simplest solution that works.
ponytail-review	`/ponytail-review`	Over-engineering review: `L42: yagni: factory, one product. Inline.`
ponytail-help	`/ponytail-help`	This card.

Codex uses @ponytail, @ponytail-review, and @ponytail-help; Claude Code and OpenCode use the slash-command forms above (OpenCode ships /ponytail and /ponytail-review).

Deactivate

Say "stop ponytail" or "normal mode". Resume anytime with /ponytail. /ponytail off also works.

Configure Default Mode

Default mode = full, auto-active every session. Change it:

Environment variable (highest priority):

export PONYTAIL_DEFAULT_MODE=ultra

Config file (~/.config/ponytail/config.json, Windows: %APPDATA%\ponytail\config.json):

{ "defaultMode": "lite" }

Set "off" to disable auto-activation on session start, activate manually with /ponytail when wanted.

Resolution: env var > config file > full.

Update

Enable auto-update once: open /plugin, go to Marketplaces, pick ponytail, Enable auto-update. Claude Code then pulls new versions at startup (run /reload-plugins when it prompts). Manual refresh: /plugin marketplace update ponytail then /reload-plugins.

If /plugin is not recognized, your Claude Code is out of date. Update it (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code@latest, or brew upgrade claude-code) and restart. Other hosts use their own update flow.

Full docs + examples: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail

Repository: DietrichGebert/ponytail
Commit: 99139a2

Last updated: 4 days ago
Created: 4 days ago

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