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ponytail-debt — Claude Code skill: what it does, how to install

Turns every deliberate ponytail shortcut into one debt ledger: file, line, the ceiling the comment names, and the trigger for revisiting it.

Install into Claude Code · Skills CLI (Vercel) All methods and platforms ↓ 
npx skills add DietrichGebert/ponytail --skill ponytail-debt -a claude-code
Open on GitHub

What ponytail-debt does

A ponytail shortcut is marked with a shortcut: comment that names its ceiling and upgrade path; older code may say ponytail:. The skill greps for them with git grep --no-index --exclude-standard -nE '(#|//|/[*]) ?(shortcut|ponytail):', which skips .git and whatever .gitignore excludes, so dependencies and build output stay out. Matching on the comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions the convention out of the ledger.

One row per marker, grouped by file: :, . ceiling: . upgrade: .. Ceiling and trigger come straight from the comment. A marker that names no upgrade path gets a no-trigger tag, and those are the rows that rot silently. The report closes with markers, with no trigger. Nothing found: No shortcut debt. Clean ledger.

It reads and reports, changes nothing. Ask it to persist the ledger and it writes a file such as PONYTAIL-DEBT.md. Your own marker word works as well: /ponytail-debt TODO greps for that instead. Worth installing if the repo already follows the ponytail convention; without those comments you get an empty list.

What it helps with

  • Find every deferral left in the code before a refactor
  • Spot markers with no trigger before they rot
  • Dump the ledger to a file for a ticket
  • Audit your own marker word, such as TODO
  • See what ponytail deferred in a repo you just picked up

Example prompts for the agent

  • run ponytail debt on this repo
  • what did ponytail defer here?
  • /ponytail-debt TODO and save it to `PONYTAIL-DEBT.md`

How to install ponytail-debt

1Skills CLI (Vercel)

npx skills add DietrichGebert/ponytail --skill ponytail-debt -a claude-code

2Manually: put the files in place

~/.claude/skills/ponytail-debt/SKILL.md

Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/ponytail-debt/

From the same set6

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Questions about ponytail-debt

How do I install ponytail-debt in Claude Code?

Run npx skills add DietrichGebert/ponytail --skill ponytail-debt -a claude-code. The skill lands in ~/.claude/skills/ponytail-debt/SKILL.md.

What does ponytail-debt do?

It greps the repo for shortcut: and older ponytail: comments, pulls the ceiling and upgrade path out of each one, and prints a single ledger grouped by file. It edits nothing.

Can I use my own marker word?

Yes, pass it along: /ponytail-debt TODO. The grep then runs on your word instead of shortcut and ponytail.

Does it write anything to disk?

Not by default, it only reports. Ask it to persist the ledger and it saves to a file like PONYTAIL-DEBT.md.

Source text

SKILL.md · MIT 
---
name: ponytail-debt
description: >
  List every `shortcut:` comment (and older `ponytail:` ones) as a debt ledger. One-shot report,
  changes nothing. Use for "ponytail debt", "what did ponytail defer", "list the
  shortcuts", /ponytail-debt.
---

Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a `shortcut:` comment naming
its ceiling and upgrade path (older code may say `ponytail:`). This collects them into one ledger so a deferral
can't quietly become permanent.

## Scan

Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping `.git` and everything the
`.gitignore` files ignore (dependencies, build output, caches, in any stack):

`git grep --no-index --exclude-standard -nE '(#|//|/[*]) ?(shortcut|ponytail):'`  (add other comment prefixes if your stack uses them)

If the user names their own marker word (`/ponytail-debt TODO`), grep for that word instead.

Each hit is one ledger row. The comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions
the convention out of the ledger. Skip hits that are not a deferral, like a note
about a keyboard shortcut.

## 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 `shortcut: <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 marker 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 shortcut 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.

© DietrichGebert · MIT · DietrichGebert/ponytail

See also

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