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ponytail

Forces the laziest solution that actually works, simplest, shortest, most minimal. Channels a senior dev who has seen everything: question whether the task needs to exist at all (YAGNI), reach for the standard library before custom code, native platform features before dependencies, one line before fifty. Supports intensity levels: lite, full (default), ultra. Use whenever the user says "ponytail", "be lazy", "lazy mode", "simplest solution", "minimal solution", "yagni", "do less", or "shortest path", and whenever they complain about over-engineering, bloat, boilerplate, or unnecessary dependencies.

72

Quality

89%

Does it follow best practices?

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SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No findings from the security scan

The canonical home for this skill is ponytail in TanStack/ai

SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Content

78%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

The body is a well-organized, actionable instruction skill with a clear decision ladder, concrete examples, and an enforced output format. It is lean and self-contained; the only drag is light persona padding rather than any structural weakness.

Suggestions

Trim the persona color ('seen every over-engineered codebase and been paged at 3am') and the hardware-calibration aside to tighten conciseness toward the top anchor.

Add an explicit validate-and-retry loop (e.g., for the self-check: run it, if it fails fix and re-run) to lift workflow_clarity from 4 to 5.

Make the 'Output' pattern mandatory and earlier so the expected response shape is unambiguous before the rules section.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

Tight, punchy prose that largely assumes Claude's competence ('The best code is the code never written'), with only minor persona padding in the intro and the hardware-calibration aside that could be trimmed.

4 / 5

Actionability

Gives concrete, executable guidance — the ladder rungs, specific rules with worked examples (@lru_cache, `<input type="date">`, the `ponytail:` comment pattern), and a copy-ready output template — with only minor gaps.

4 / 5

Workflow Clarity

The ladder is a clearly sequenced decision process with 'stop at the first rung that holds' and a built-in self-check checkpoint; minor gaps keep it just below the explicit-validate/retry-loop top anchor.

4 / 5

Progressive Disclosure

A single self-contained SKILL.md under ~90 lines with well-signaled sections and no external bundle files; per the simple-skill guideline this earns the top anchor.

5 / 5

Total

17

/

20

Passed

Description

100%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

The description is exemplary: concrete actions, a rich set of natural trigger phrases, explicit 'Use when' guidance, and a distinct niche. It hits the top anchor on every dimension with no padding.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

Lists multiple concrete actions — 'question whether the task needs to exist at all (YAGNI)', 'reach for the standard library before custom code', 'native platform features before dependencies', 'one line before fifty' — giving comprehensive coverage of the skill's behavior.

5 / 5

Completeness

Explicitly answers both 'what' (forces the laziest solution, ladder of fallbacks) and 'when' via the clear 'Use whenever the user says...' clause with concrete trigger phrases.

5 / 5

Trigger Term Quality

Comprehensive natural trigger coverage including 'ponytail', 'be lazy', 'lazy mode', 'simplest solution', 'minimal solution', 'yagni', 'do less', 'shortest path', plus complaint triggers (over-engineering, bloat, boilerplate, unnecessary dependencies).

5 / 5

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Carves a clear niche (lazy/minimal code, YAGNI discipline) with distinctive triggers unlikely to collide with other skills.

5 / 5

Total

20

/

20

Passed

Validation

93%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation15 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

CriteriaDescriptionResult

frontmatter_unknown_keys

Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata

Warning

Total

15

/

16

Passed

Repository
TanStack/ai
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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