pi-ponytail

Lazy senior dev mode for your Pi coding agent.

He says nothing. He writes one line. It works. Ponytail puts a deadpan senior developer inside your Pi agent. Before writing code it climbs a ladder: does this need to exist? (YAGNI) → already in the codebase? → stdlib? → native platform? → installed dependency? → one line? → minimum that works.

A fork of DietrichGebert/ponytail adapted for the Pi harness.

Install

pi install ./pi-ponytail

Or from npm:

pi install npm:@bacnh85/pi-ponytail

Commands

| Command | What it does | |---------|--------------| | /ponytail | Enable the default mode (full unless changed) | | /ponytail lite\|full\|ultra\|off | Set session intensity | | /ponytail status | Show current and default mode | | /ponytail default lite\|full\|ultra\|off | Persist the default across sessions | | /skill:ponytail-review | Over-engineering review on the current diff | | /skill:ponytail-audit | Whole-repo over-engineering audit | | /skill:ponytail-debt | Harvest ponytail: shortcut markers into a ledger | | /skill:ponytail-gain | Show measured-impact scoreboard (benchmark medians) | | /skill:ponytail-help | Quick reference |

Deactivate: stop ponytail or normal mode. Resume with /ponytail.

Intensity levels

| Level | What changes | |-------|-------------| | lite | Build what's asked, name the lazier alternative in one line. You pick. | | full | The ladder enforced. Stdlib and native first. Shortest diff, shortest explanation. Default. | | ultra | YAGNI extremist. Deletion before addition. Ship the one-liner and challenge the rest. | | off | Ponytail disabled for this session. |

Default mode

Resolution order (first wins):

1. Env var — PONYTAIL_DEFAULT_MODE=lite|full|ultra|off
2. Config file — $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ponytail/config.json or ~/.config/ponytail/config.json

   { "defaultMode": "full" }

3. Built-in — full

License

MIT. Same as upstream.