karpathy-guidelines

To reduce unnecessary complexity in LLM coding, apply explicit thinking processes and enforce minimal, surgical changes. Surface assumptions and define verifiable success criteria before writing or refactoring code to maintain codebase integrity.

The best way to plan surgical code changes is to state assumptions explicitly, choose a minimal approach, and outline verifiable success criteria. This plan-driven execution guides developers through minimal, measurable edits during refactoring.

Defining verifiable success criteria involves explicitly stating assumptions and planning minimal edits before reviewing code. This surfaces tradeoffs and ensures LLM coding tasks produce measurable outcomes and verifiable results.

LLMs generate complex code edits when lacking explicit thinking and plan-driven execution. Enforcing surgical changes and surfacing tradeoffs before making edits helps avoid unnecessary complexity and maintains codebase integrity.

Yes, you can use these coding guidelines for both writing and reviewing workflows. They enforce explicit thought processes and minimal, surgical changes to surface assumptions and verify results across all coding tasks.

Avoid a minimal surgical changes approach when a coding task requires large architectural overhauls rather than targeted edits. These guidelines focus on reducing complexity through plan-driven execution and verifiable success criteria for minimal modifications.