"on every model" read as cross-provider, but the 30-rep verification shows
the cost win reverses on OpenAI reasoning models. Match the caption and
benchmarks/README, which already say Claude.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Re-ran the cost benchmark at 30 reps per cell on Claude (Haiku/Sonnet/Opus):
ponytail is 42-75% cheaper than no-skill, not the previously published 47-77%.
The direction holds, both ends came in a few points lower. Updates the README
headline and body, the benchmark chart subtitle, and the benchmarks/README cost
table, and adds a dated results doc with full method.
Also adds the OpenAI (gpt-4.1-mini/gpt-5.4-mini/gpt-5.5) and Gemini configs. On
OpenAI reasoning models ponytail costs more, not less, so the claim stays
Claude-scoped. Gemini run pending a fresh-quota day.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
INVARIANTS pinned only 'input validation at trust boundaries'; the other three carve-outs (data-loss, security, accessibility) could drift silently. Adds 'prevents data loss', 'security', 'accessibility' as canaries, each present verbatim in both SKILL.md and AGENTS.md. No rule text changed.
Adds a caveat under the headline numbers: they are per-task code/latency/cost on the Claude API, not a plan quota promise. Prevents the misread in #111.
Bumps all four plugin manifests to 4.7.0 for the OpenClaw / ClawHub skill package (#102).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Adds .openclaw/skills/ (ponytail + review/audit/debt/help) generated from the canonical skills/ (verbatim body, no drift), a generator script, and a drift test. Verified live: loads as Ready in OpenClaw 2026.6.6.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(benchmarks): correctness gate scores unfenced code; fix debounce task
The `correct` gate under-reported correctness for terse models, the likely
source of "Ponytail degrades models" reports (issue #65):
- extractBlocks() only matched fenced code blocks, so bare/unfenced code
scored an automatic fail even when correct. Now falls back to the whole
response as one block (and tolerates CRLF). Debounce detection also accepts
unfenced arrow functions.
- The debounce task asked to "add debounce to a search input" but the check
expected a reusable debounce(fn, delay) util, failing correct inline answers.
Task reworded to the deliverable the check verifies.
Adds correctness.test.js (regression guard) and a GPT-mini repro config plus
results writeup: on a clean n=20 run, the reported gpt-4.1-mini drop (10/15)
does not reproduce (100/100). The LOC win (~halved) holds.
README repro fixed: promptfoo needs --env-file ../.env (reads cwd, not root).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(benchmarks): add robustness audit — ponytail vs baseline on edge cases
Answers the real question behind #65: does ponytail's push for the shortest
solution make weak models produce wrong code on edge cases?
robustness-audit.js: 16 self-verifying tasks (12 algorithmic edge-case traps +
4 validators). Each check ships a known-good and known-lazy-wrong reference that
must pass/fail before any model output is scored (--selftest, 16/16).
Findings (gpt-4.1-mini + gpt-5.4-mini, baseline vs ponytail): parity on every
edge-case trap on both models. The one measured soft spot is gpt-5.4-mini email
(~4-5%, reaches for parseaddr). A sharpened SKILL.md validation rule had no
reliable effect in an n=100 A/B (96% vs 95%), so it was not shipped — the
tendency is model-level, not skill-level. Full writeup in results/.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(benchmarks): email slip is provider-specific — 100% on Claude
High-n cross-provider follow-up to the robustness audit. The one ponytail
soft spot (email validation via parseaddr) splits by provider, not model size:
- Claude (haiku/sonnet/opus): 100% under ponytail, n=40 each — and ponytail
beats baseline (unconstrained Sonnet over-engineers into an always-truthy
dict, 0/40; ponytail writes a clean validator).
- OpenAI (gpt-4.1-mini..gpt-5.5): slips at every size under ponytail
(~79-98%), baseline ~100%. The parseaddr reflex lives in OpenAI training.
Not fixable by skill text: 8 distinct SKILL.md edits (incl. an n=100 A/B,
96% vs 95%) all scored <= current, several worse, all bloated LOC. Nothing
shipped. SKILL.md unchanged.
Conclusion: on ponytail's target platform (Claude) email is 100%; the GPT
slip is a documented cross-provider transfer quirk. Adds model-email.js /
claude-email.js to reproduce the tables. Writeup updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* docs(benchmarks): correct misleading Sonnet baseline 0 percent
The Sonnet baseline 0/40 on email is a return-type artifact, not a logic
failure: unconstrained Sonnet returns a dict {is_valid, message} instead of a
bool, so the bool-contract gate scores every case as accepted. Read dict-aware
via is_valid, its logic is ~75% correct (9/12). Reframed honestly so we are not
presenting 0 vs 100 as a clean win; ponytail still wins (clean 100% bool) but
the point is over-engineered return type, not total failure.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Documents the Antigravity CLI install, the global default-level config, and the OpenCode absolute-path option. Addresses #58, #64, #71.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Bumps all four plugin manifests to 4.6.0 so /ponytail-help reaches the release-install hosts (Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI marketplace).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ships the previously-missing /ponytail-help adapter files (commands/ponytail-help.toml, .opencode/command/ponytail-help.md) and adds tests/commands.test.js, a parity guard asserting every pi-registered command has both adapter files. Thanks @hooni0918.
Fixes the local benchmark LOC counter (counted only fenced code, scored bare output 0), makes summary output ASCII-safe (a Unicode arrow crashed the script on Windows cp1252), gitignores generated artifacts, and refreshes the llama3.2 writeup with n=5 data showing the LOC effect is within the noise floor. Follow-up to #63. Verified live.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Release-prep bump across all four plugin manifests (Claude Code, Codex,
Gemini, Copilot) for v4.5.0. The cross-manifest parity test keeps them aligned.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude Code runs hooks via a non-interactive /bin/sh. On setups where node
isn't on that shell's PATH (Nix/nix-darwin, nvm, fnm), every prompt errored
with "/bin/sh: node: command not found". Guard each hook command so it runs
node only when present and exits 0 otherwise, no more per-prompt noise. The
slash-command skills are unaffected; only the always-on activation needs node.
Document the requirement in the README install section.
Closes#51.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The benchmark harness hardcoded `python`, which is missing on macOS and
many Linux images. Probe python3 first, add npm test, and run checks in
GitHub Actions so regressions are caught on every PR.
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
The badge had fallen behind: it stayed at 11 when Antigravity and the VS Code
Codex extension were added, and Copilot CLI is now a full plugin host too. 13
distinct agent rows in docs/agent-portability.md (excluding the generic
fallback).
* Add GitHub Copilot plugin and marketplace manifests for Ponytail
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Add Copilot hook adapters and plugin data runtime precedence
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Document Copilot plugin install flow and instruction fallback mode
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Fix Copilot hooks for native output context and state-only mode tracking
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* docs: add Copilot CLI namespaced command examples
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Collapse Copilot hooks into shared activate/mode-tracker
The Copilot hook files duplicated ponytail-activate.js and
ponytail-mode-tracker.js, differing only in output shape. Move that
difference into writeHookOutput (isCopilot branch) and point
copilot-hooks.json at the shared hooks. Deletes both forks (-73 lines).
Refs #1
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
* Align Copilot manifest version to 4.4.0 with cross-manifest parity test
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Make Copilot and Codex host detection exclusive in runtime output routing
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Add Copilot debt command validation with a pull request acceptance checklist
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
* Removed PR template
* Drop tautological copilot command-form test
The namespaced-form assertion built '/ponytail:ponytail-debt' from two
constants and compared it to itself — it tests string concatenation, not
wiring. The file-exists check above already catches a renamed manifest.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A `git add -A` during the v4.4.0 bump accidentally tracked the announcement
art (announce/changelog/ponytail-*.gif) in the repo root. Untrack them and
gitignore the pattern; they stay on disk for posting but out of the repo.
The header showed logo.png (black on transparent), which nearly vanishes in
GitHub's dark theme. Wrap it in a <picture> so dark-theme viewers get the
contoured logo-dark.png and light-theme viewers keep the original.
A dark-bg-ready variant of the mark: white face fill plus a die-cut white
contour so it reads on dark backgrounds, where logo.png (black on transparent)
and the social-preview face do not. Ships as SVG (scalable, white + black
layers) and a 1085x1241 PNG.
Contributed by @pixexid in #42.
Co-authored-by: pixexid <54691335+pixexid@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* docs: add a Commands reference to the README
The commands were only mentioned scattered through prose, and two install
blurbs had gone stale (OpenCode omitted /ponytail-debt, Gemini omitted audit
and debt). Add one canonical Commands table (all five commands + what each
does + which hosts support them) and point the install blurbs at it so they
stop drifting as commands are added.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* docs: add pi to the portability table, de-stale the Gemini row
pi was a supported integration (pi-extension, README install, registers all
the commands) but had no row in the Supported Adapters table. The Gemini row
also enumerated an outdated command list; point it at commands/*.toml
generically so it stops drifting.
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Closes the last gap from the field review: deferral creep. /ponytail-debt
greps the repo for `ponytail:` comment markers and prints a ledger
(file:line, what was simplified, ceiling, upgrade trigger), flagging any
marker with no trigger as the rot risk. One-shot, reports only.
Full parity like ponytail-audit: skill + commands/.toml + .opencode/.md + pi
registerCommand (+ test) + agent-portability + README.
Verified: tests 32/32 (pi command list updated), rule check green, the scan
finds the repo's real markers, and a live end-to-end run produced a correct
ledger (2 markers, 1 no-trigger, prose/examples excluded).
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat: refine ruleset from a full-project field review
A reviewer ran ponytail across a 9-phase rewrite (protocol, PC app, simulator,
RPi daemon, ESP32 firmware) and flagged three gaps. All three land in SKILL.md
and propagate to AGENTS.md + the rule copies:
- Promote the one-runnable-check rule to a headline ("Lazy code without its
check is unfinished"), enforced as a check-rule-copies invariant.
- Hardware carve-out in "When NOT to be lazy": a real device is never the spec
ideal (clock drift, sensor offset), leave the calibration knob.
- Clarify the Output rule: explanation the user explicitly asked for is not
debt, only unrequested prose is.
Fallback instructions kept in sync. Rule-copy check + tests green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test: add a behavior gate proving the refinements actually fire
The refinements were verified as injected text, but injected != behavioral.
This adds a behavior eval that probes each refined rule on a task that should
trigger it:
- hardware -> does the output leave a calibration knob?
- explanation -> when a write-up is explicitly requested, is it given in full?
- onecheck -> is a runnable check left behind?
benchmarks/behavior.yaml runs the probes (baseline vs ponytail arm); the
grader benchmarks/behavior.js is proven by tests/behavior.test.js (8 cases,
RED/GREEN, no API key, runs in CI). Live-confirmed: the model under the
current ruleset passes all three gates, graded by the same grader.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Release-prep bump across the Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini manifests.
Cutting v4.3.0 also fixes#33: gemini extensions install pulls the latest
GitHub release, and gemini-extension.json was added after v4.2.0, so it
was missing from the release tarball. Shipping it in a release fixes the
plain install command.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
ponytail-activate.js and ponytail-runtime.js hardcoded ~/.claude for the
flag file and settings lookup, ignoring CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR. Add a shared
getClaudeDir() to ponytail-config.js and use it in both. Regression test
added to hooks.test.js.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat(benchmarks): add correctness assertion - proves less code is not broken code
The existing benchmark measures lines-of-code (loc.js) but never checks
whether the generated code actually works. This adds a functional
correctness gate (correctness.js) that extracts code from fenced blocks
and runs per-task checks:
- email validator: spawns Python, asserts accept/reject on 5 inputs
- debounce: spawns Node, asserts delayed execution + reset on re-call
- csv sum: spawns Python with a test CSV, asserts correct total (351)
- countdown (React): structural check (useState + useEffect + decrement)
- rate limiter (FastAPI): structural check (limit logic + framework usage)
12 unit tests (node:test) cover good/bad outputs for every task plus the
unknown-task edge case. Existing tests and rule-copy checks unaffected.
* fix: address review feedback
- csv check: use regex lookaround instead of substring match to prevent
false positives (e.g. 13510 containing '351')
- ratelimit: fix operator precedence in block finder by adding parens
around the || inside the !b.lang guard
- README: note that React/FastAPI checks are structural only, add
prerequisites section (Python 3, pandas, Node.js 18+)
- test: add regression test for csv substring false positive
Both read AGENTS.md, which the repo already ships, so ponytail works
from the repo root with no extra setup. Add agent-portability rows and a
README note. Instruction-tier (no /ponytail levels or hooks).
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Copilot CLI already reads AGENTS.md and .github/copilot-instructions.md
(both shipped), plus a global ~/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md. Add an
agent-portability row and a README note. Instruction-tier only: no
/ponytail levels or hooks.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* feat: add Gemini CLI support
Add a thin Gemini CLI extension adapter (closes#22). The manifest points
contextFileName at the existing AGENTS.md for always-on rules and reuses the
repo's commands/*.toml (/ponytail, /ponytail-review) and skills/, which Gemini
CLI auto-discovers — no rule text is duplicated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test: read manifest inside cases for a clean RED
The manifest was parsed at module scope, so reverting the adapter crashed the
whole test file at load (ENOENT) and collapsed all four cases into one
unreadable failure. Read it inside each case via a helper that asserts existence
first, so a missing or malformed manifest surfaces as clear per-case assertion
failures instead of a stack trace.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
On Windows the lifecycle hooks run via PowerShell, which does not expand
cmd.exe-style %CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT%. The path was passed literally, so the hook
launcher could not find the script and both SessionStart and UserPromptSubmit
failed with exit code 1 (issue #19). Switch the two commandWindows entries to
$env:CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT, keeping the working node + .js invocation.
Add a regression test that rejects cmd.exe %VAR% syntax in commandWindows and
asserts every hook command points at a script that actually ships in hooks/.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* Add ponytail-audit skill
Whole-codebase audit for over-engineering. Scans a repository and produces a
ranked report of things to delete, simplify, or replace with stdlib/native
equivalents.
* Drop counting-by-number heuristics: remove Phase 5 (structural audit) and TODO-age heuristic per review
* feat: slim ponytail-audit and add cross-platform parity
Rewrite the ponytail-audit skill to ponytail-review's lean shape (35 lines,
was 111): same five tags, repo-wide scope, ranked output. Drop the
prescriptive phase walkthrough, sampling rules, report template, and the
license frontmatter that no other skill carries.
Add the adapters the skill was missing so it ships on every supported
platform the way ponytail-review does:
- commands/ponytail-audit.toml
- .opencode/command/ponytail-audit.md
- pi-extension registerCommand (+ test)
- agent-portability and README entries
Co-authored-by: Alexander Brandt <github@a13x.de>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Emeriko <dietrich.gebert@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Use auto-update or marketplace refresh + /reload-plugins (not reinstall), and
note that an unrecognized /plugin means Claude Code itself needs updating.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Swap em dashes for commas/colons/periods in the README, skills, AGENTS.md and
its five rule copies, examples, command files, and benchmark README. Rule
copies stay in sync (same edit applied to all) and the invariant guard passes.
Left untouched on purpose: the vendored caveman SKILL.md (verbatim third-party
text), the dated benchmark writeups in results/ (historical records), and
.js code comments.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The ponytail API example returned the raw ORM model, which exposes every
column. Restore a response_model whitelist (the trust boundary) while still
cutting the repository/service/exception ceremony. Matches the skill's own
'never cut security' rule.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Commit a promptfoo harness (config + arm prompts + LOC metric + vendored
caveman SKILL) so anyone can re-run the comparison: no-skill vs caveman vs
ponytail, across Haiku / Sonnet / Opus, 10 runs per cell, median reported.
Replace the old unreproducible 6-task chart with assets/benchmark-3model.svg
from this run, and reframe the README to the reproducible numbers: ponytail
writes 80-94% less code, costs 47-77% less, and runs 3-6x faster than a
no-skill agent on every model. benchmarks/README.md carries the median tables
and the reproduce command. Drops nothing that is not measured.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
hooks/hooks.json used ${PLUGIN_ROOT}, which Claude Code never defines, so the literal resolved against the hook process cwd and SessionStart/UserPromptSubmit failed with 'Cannot find module'. Switch to ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} (and %CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT% for the Codex commandWindows variant); Codex aliases CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT so both hosts resolve. Drop the duplicate inline hooks block from .claude-plugin/plugin.json so hooks load from a single canonical source.
filterSkillBodyForMode only filters lines whose label is a real mode (lite/full/ultra). Rule bullets like 'No unrequested abstractions:' and the 'ponytail:' comment convention were being stripped from injected instructions in every mode. Adds regression test.
Cover the Kiro steering file in the equality check (the stripper is now shared, renamed to stripFrontmatter), and align its body with AGENTS.md: the 'Not lazy about' and 'Non-trivial logic' sentences were split into two paragraphs where the canonical body and the other four copies keep them as one. The improved check caught this on the freshly merged #6.
Also add a small invariant canary: four load-bearing rule phrases must appear verbatim in both SKILL.md (the runtime source of truth) and AGENTS.md, catching a rule that lands in one but not the other even though the two files are intentionally different lengths.
Verified: passes on main, exits 1 when a copy diverges or an invariant goes missing.
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Adds the Codex adapter: marketplace.json, .codex-plugin/plugin.json,
declarative hooks.json with Windows command variants, and a shared
hooks/ponytail-runtime.js that switches state path and output format
between Claude and Codex (gated on PLUGIN_DATA, so the Claude path is
unchanged). Bumps plugin version to 4.1.0 and ships tests/hooks.test.js.
README adapters block resolved to keep the Codex @ponytail invocation note
together with Kiro (#6) and the drift-check Development section (#3).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
