ponytail

What problem does it solve? Codebases accumulate over-engineering: unnecessary abstractions, premature dependencies, boilerplate scaffolding, and speculative features. This Skill forces the laziest solution that actually works, channeling a senior developer who questions whether code needs to exist at all before writing it. ## Core Features & Use Cases - The Ladder: A six-rung decision hierarchy that stops at the first working solution, from YAGNI elimination through stdlib, native platform features, existing dependencies, one-liners, and only then minimal custom code. - Intensity Levels: Three modes (lite, full, ultra) controlling how aggressively minimalism is enforced, switchable mid-session with /ponytail lite|full|ultra. - Guardrails: Never simplifies away input validation, security, error handling, or accessibility; leaves one runnable self-check for non-trivial logic; marks deliberate shortcuts with ponytail: comments naming the ceiling and upgrade path. - Use Case: When asked to add a cache for API responses, instead of building a custom TTL cache class, it applies @lru_cache(maxsize=1000) and notes in one line what was skipped and when to revisit it. ## Quick Start Ask the assistant to solve your next coding task in ponytail mode, for example by saying use ponytail to add caching to this API client.