Ponytail Audit

Runs a whole-repo scan for over-engineering and bloat, tagging dependencies you can replace with stdlib, abstractions with single implementations, hand-rolled utilities the platform ships natively, and dead configuration nobody touches. Output is a ranked one-liner list of what to cut, biggest savings first, with line and dependency counts at the end. It's read-only, applies nothing, and explicitly ignores correctness or performance issues. Use it when you inherit a codebase that feels heavy or when you're pretty sure there's stuff to delete but don't know where to start. Think of it as Marie Kondo for code, except it actually tells you the specific drawer to open.

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skills.sh installs: 55.5K
GitHub stars: 187.8K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add dietrichgebert/ponytail --skill ponytail-audit --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Audit the whole repo like the senior developer who just inherited it and will be paged when it breaks. Order of importance: correct, safe, holds under load, tested, fast, lean. Lean still matters: every extra line must be read, tested and fixed later. This is a report the user asked for, so give it in full.

1. Map first

Audit what the user names: a folder, a package, or the whole repo. Nothing named: the whole repo.
Read the README, the deploy and build config, the dependency list, the entry points (main, routes, handlers, jobs, CLI commands) and the tests.
Find the expected load: one person running a script, or many users and processes at once. Judge scale against that, and say which load you assumed.
Trace the main flows end to end: where data comes in, what is stored, what goes out. Read those paths fully: input from users, money, auth, data writes, background jobs, anything shared between processes.
Big repo: go deep where a mistake costs the most, not file by file. Say which parts you did not read.