Skill

/ponytail-review

Code review focused exclusively on over-engineering. Finds what to delete: reinvented standard library, unneeded dependencies, speculative abstractions, dead flexibility. One line per finding: location, what to cut, what replaces it. Use when the user says "review for

One skill from ponytail.

shell

$ npx -y skills add DietrichGebert/ponytail --skill ponytail-review --agent claude-code

Installs just this skill. Get the whole plugin for auto-invocation.

How it fires

How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.

Fires itselfClaude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.
You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
Slash command/ponytail-review

Context preview

The summary Claude sees to decide when to auto-load this skill.

Code review focused exclusively on over-engineering. Finds what to delete: reinvented standard library, unneeded dependencies, speculative abstractions, dead flexibility. One line per finding: location, what to cut, what replaces it. Use when the user says "review for

Stats

Stars88,246

Forks4,826

LanguageJavaScript

LicenseMIT

Ships with ponytail

SKILL.md

ponytail-review.SKILL.md

---
name: ponytail-review
description: >
  Code review focused exclusively on over-engineering. Finds what to delete:
  reinvented standard library, unneeded dependencies, speculative abstractions,
  dead flexibility. One line per finding: location, what to cut, what replaces
  it. Use when the user says "review for over-engineering", "what can we
  delete", "is this over-engineered", "simplify review", or invokes
  /ponytail-review. Complements correctness-focused review, this one only
  hunts complexity.
---

Review diffs for unnecessary complexity. One line per finding: location, what
to cut, what replaces it. The diff's best outcome is getting shorter.

## Format

`L<line>: <tag> <what>. <replacement>.`, or `<file>:L<line>: ...` for
multi-file diffs.

Tags:

- `delete:` dead code, unused flexibility, speculative feature. Replacement: nothing.
- `stdlib:` hand-rolled thing the standard library ships. Name the function.
- `native:` dependency or code doing what the platform already does. Name the feature.
- `yagni:` abstraction with one implementation, config nobody sets, layer with one caller.
- `shrink:` same logic, fewer lines. Show the shorter form.

## Examples

❌ "This EmailValidator class might be more complex than necessary, have you