Ponytail Debt

A ledger for deliberate shortcuts. Every time ponytail defers something it leaves a `ponytail:` comment naming the ceiling and the upgrade path; this skill harvests all of them into one debt list so "later" does not quietly become "never". Read-only — it reports the deferrals and changes nothing.

skills.sh installs: 52.5K
GitHub stars: 187.8K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

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

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

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>.

SKILL.md on GitHub