Ponytail is a set of instructions and extensions that guides AI coding agents toward smaller, simpler code changes while retaining safety checks. It is intended for developers using agents such as Claude Code, and the catalogue entries are its skills, instructions, plugin, and rule.
Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytailWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-audit)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-audit"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-audit/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-audit"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-audit.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00000 | $0.00378 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00000 | $0.00151 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00000 | $0.00076 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00000 | $0.00038 |
Grade A, and why
ponytail-audit scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 17d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
Copies of this mod
3 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:
- ponytail-audit — 100% identical, 4 lines differ
- ponytail-audit — 100% identical, 4 lines differ
- ponytail-audit — 95% identical, 6 lines differ
What it actually says
Audit the whole repository (or the folder the user names) like the senior developer who just inherited it. Map first: README, deploy and build config, dependencies, entry points, tests; find the expected load (one person or many users and processes); trace the main flows and read fully the paths with user input, money, auth, data writes, background jobs and shared state. Look for, in this order: bugs, risk (security holes, data loss), scale (races, the same work done by every process, memory that only grows, a query per item, O(n^2)), risky logic without a test, slow code (big = problem, small = suggestion), lean (dead code, duplicate helpers, stdlib or native instead of custom code or a dependency, abstractions with one implementation, near-copies to merge, a function doing several unrelated jobs to split, never split by line count). Before calling code unused, grep the whole tree including tests, fixtures, config and string references. Every finding needs a concrete case. A shortcut marked with a shortcut: (or older ponytail:) comment that names its limit is a decision, not a finding. Propose the smallest fix, prefer deleting code, never add layers. Very simple English. Start with 'What this repo does:' and the load you assumed. Then at most 20 numbered findings grouped Must fix / Should fix / Nice to have, most important first; each: a bold title with file:lines, then four bullets: What this is, Problem, Fix, If we skip it. End with 'Verdict:', 'Lean: -N lines, -M dependencies possible.' and 'Not checked:' for the parts you did not read. Change no code.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 17d ago Changed · -13 tokens per session f40cb014b74b
- 20d ago Changed ec26c422c77b
- 22d ago Changed 536c9130d5c1
- 1mo ago First seen · 6 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A 6278f820b117
ponytail-audit is a command published in the GitHub repository DietrichGebert/ponytail (176,199 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 378 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-08.
Other commands, from other repositories
init
Install the formatters this repository needs, with every command visible before it runs.
simplify
The over-engineering review: five tags (delete, stdlib, native, yagni, shrink), a mandatory replacement per finding, and a real null result when there is nothing to cut.
git
The pre-finish status: branch, hygiene findings, message checks, workflow lint, template state.
extend
Capture a mid-PR sub-idea and implement it onto the current open PR's branch — no new branch, no new PR. Preserves Verify → Review → Deliver.
fec-smell
Diagnose frontend code smells with evidence and candidate refactorings without changing business code.
security-review
Depth-first security audit of the current git diff — OWASP Top 10, secret leakage, insecure-by-default APIs, and language-specific foot-guns. Pass a PR number to audit a specific PR's diff.