ponytail-debt
Installation
Copy the prompt below and send it to your AI assistant (e.g. Claude Code) — it will follow the instructions and install automatically.
Install the "ponytail-debt" skill by following the instructions at https://skill123.me/install/ponytail-debt.
Run in your terminal — downloads and installs to ~/.claude/skills/.
curl -fsSL https://skill123.me/install/ponytail-debt.sh | bash
Download the zip and extract it into your skills directory (e.g. ~/.claude/skills/), then restart your session.
⬇ Download v1.0.0 · 1 KBNot live-tested yet — this skill is rated on static analysis only.
About this skill
Harvest every ponytail: comment in the codebase into a debt ledger, so the deliberate shortcuts and deferrals ponytail leaves behind get tracked instead of rotting into "later means never". Use when the user says "ponytail debt", "/ponytail-debt", "what did ponytail defer", "list the shortcuts", "ponytail ledger", or "what did we mark to do later". One-shot report, changes nothing.
Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a ponytail: comment naming
its ceiling and upgrade path. This collects them into one ledger so a deferral
can't quietly become permanent.
Documentation
Harvest every ponytail: comment in the codebase into a debt ledger, so the deliberate shortcuts and deferrals ponytail leaves behind get tracked instead of rotting into "later means never". Use when the user says "ponytail debt", "/ponytail-debt", "what did ponytail defer", "list the shortcuts", "ponytail ledger", or "what did we mark to do later". One-shot report, changes nothing.
Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a ponytail: comment naming
its ceiling and upgrade path. This collects them into one ledger so a deferral
can't quietly become permanent.
Scan
Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping node_modules, .git, and build
output:
grep -rnE --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=node_modules --exclude-dir=dist --exclude-dir=build '(#|//|/[*]) ?ponytail:' . (add other comment prefixes if your stack uses them)
Each hit is one ledger row. The comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions
the convention out of the ledger.
Output
One row per marker, grouped by file:
<file>:<line>, <what was simplified>. ceiling: <the limit named>. upgrade: <the trigger to revisit>.
The convention is ponytail: <ceiling>, <upgrade path>, so pull the ceiling
and the trigger straight from the comment. Want an owner per row too? add
git blame -L<line>,<line>.
Flag the rot risk: any ponytail: comment that names no upgrade path or
trigger gets a no-trigger tag, those are the ones that silently rot.
End with <N> markers, <M> with no trigger. Nothing found: No ponytail: debt. Clean ledger.
Boundaries
Reads and reports only, changes nothing. To persist it, ask and it writes the
ledger to a file (e.g. PONYTAIL-DEBT.md). One-shot. "stop ponytail-debt" or
"normal mode" to revert.
Score breakdown
Assessment methodology
Version history
Imported from DietrichGebert/ponytail@main