dietrichgebert/ponytail
Makes your AI agent think like the laziest senior dev in the room. The best code is the code you never wrote.
How ponytail is put together
Ponytail is a distribution package that injects a 'lazy senior dev' code-minimalism ruleset into many AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot CLI, Pi, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Qoder, Cursor, Windsurf, Devin, Grok). The core logic lives in CommonJS Node.js lifecycle hooks under hooks/ (mode resolution, instruction generation, activation), which are consumed by adapters: a Pi extension (ESM), an OpenCode plugin, an MCP stdio server (ponytail-mcp), plus declarative manifests and markdown skills/rules files per harness. Data flow is one-directional: each host loads AGENTS.md or a manifest, runs the hooks/plugins to prepend the ruleset to the agent's system prompt each turn, and exposes /ponytail slash commands backed by skills/*.md. There is no network service, datastore, or backend; everything runs locally in the user's agent process.
Languages
Frameworks
Infrastructure
Major components
hooks/
CommonJS Node.js lifecycle hooks (activate, runtime, mode-tracker, subagent, statusline) that inject the Ponytail ruleset into Claude Code/Codex/Copilot sessions.
hooks/ponytail-config.js
Shared configuration resolver: default mode from PONYTAIL_DEFAULT_MODE env var, ~/.config/ponytail/config.json (XDG/APPDATA aware), CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR override, and mode normalization/validation.
pi-extension/
ESM Pi-agent extension registering /ponytail* commands, session-mode persistence, status-bar indicator, and before_agent_start systemPrompt injection.
ponytail-mcp/
Standalone MCP stdio server exposing the ruleset as a 'ponytail' prompt and a 'ponytail_instructions' tool with zod-validated mode argument.
.opencode/plugins/
OpenCode plugin entry points (ponytail.mjs, ponytail-frontmatter.cjs) injecting rules every turn and adding /ponytail commands.
skills/
Six markdown skills (ponytail, review, audit, debt, gain, help) implementing the slash-command behaviors, mirrored for OpenClaw under .openclaw/skills/.
per-agent adapter manifests
Declarative plugin/marketplace/rule files (.claude-plugin/, .codex-plugin/, .copilot-style plugin.yaml, gemini-extension.json, .qoder-plugin/, .cursor/, .windsurf/, .clinerules/, .kiro/, .agents/) wiring the same ruleset into each host.
commands/
TOML slash-command definitions (ponytail.toml and five subcommands) for hosts that consume TOML command specs.
Ponytail added support for Grok Build and shipped a new v4.9.0 release alongside compatibility fixes.
This week's work on ponytail focused on expanding compatibility with different AI coding tools and cleaning up packaging issues. A new adapter lets the project work with Grok Build's native skills, while two fixes improved how the tool detects VS Code Copilot and passes marketplace validation for Claude.ai. The week wrapped up with a new release, v4.9.0, bundling these improvements.
Feature
Grok Build support added
A new adapter lets Ponytail work with Grok Build's native skills system, reviving an earlier request.
Fix
Better VS Code Copilot detection
The tool now correctly recognizes VS Code Copilot by falling back to an alternative detection method when the usual one isn't available.
Fix
Claude.ai marketplace validation fixed
Removed a settings entry that was causing the plugin to fail Claude.ai's marketplace validation checks.
Chore
Version 4.9.0 released
Packaged all of this week's improvements into a new official release.
Dependencies and code review
Dependency advisories
Security Watch
No known advisories across 0 scanned dependencies.
No known advisories in the scanned dependencies.
Code review
No concrete code-level issues confirmed.
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