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-help)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-help"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-help/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-help"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/dietrichgebert/ponytail/ponytail-help.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 | $0.00011 | $0.00280 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00004 | $0.00112 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00002 | $0.00056 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00001 | $0.00028 |
Grade A, and why
ponytail-help 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-help — 100% identical, 4 lines differ
- ponytail-help — 94% identical, 4 lines differ
- ponytail-help — 91% identical, 2 lines differ
What it actually says
Show the ponytail quick reference. One shot, change nothing: do not switch mode, write flag files, or persist anything. Levels: /ponytail lite (build what's asked, name the lazier alternative in one line), /ponytail (full, the default ladder: YAGNI then stdlib then native then one line then minimum), /ponytail ultra (deletion before addition, challenges the requirement before building). Commands: /ponytail-review (over-engineering review of the current changes), /ponytail-audit (whole-repo over-engineering audit), /ponytail-debt (harvest shortcut: comments into a tracked ledger), /ponytail-gain (measured-impact scoreboard from the benchmark), /ponytail-help (this card). Deactivate with 'stop ponytail', 'normal mode', or /ponytail off; resume anytime with /ponytail. Default mode is full; change it with the PONYTAIL_DEFAULT_MODE environment variable (off|lite|full|ultra) or a config file at ~/.config/ponytail/config.json (Windows: %APPDATA%\ponytail\config.json) with {"defaultMode": "lite"}. Resolution order: env var, then config file, then full.
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 8d29017fc863
- 1mo ago First seen · 6 lines · 11 tokens per session scan A 3052afd5cc1e
ponytail-help is a command published in the GitHub repository DietrichGebert/ponytail (176,199 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 11 tokens to every session and 280 once invoked, about $0.0000 per session on Opus 5.5. 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
orchestrate
Do this task as an orchestrator. The aim is the same result at a fraction of the cost: in a long session, every token in this conversation is re-read on each later request, while a subagent's reading is discarded when it returns. The plugin's subagents run on Haiku 5.5, about 40× cheaper per token than Opus 5.5.
scout-meta-review
Run an interactive Scout meta-review — a system-level audit that sits above the individual session types. Checks whether sessions are running, mistake audit is trending well, proposals are flowing, KB files are healthy, and data-source coverage is consistent across session types. Runs in the current conversation.
takeoff
Create, resume, or clear a session hand-off baton (one per work line).
matcha:off
🍵 Disable matcha — completely silent, zero token overhead.
tasks
Inspect Modellix task status and recover tasks after a timeout or unknown submission.
openehr-explain
One-stop router that explains or looks up any openEHR thing — auto-detects an archetype, a template, an RM/AM/BASE type, an RM structural concept, an ADL idiom, an AQL query or keyword, or a terminology code (replaces /archetype-explain, /template-explain, /type-spec, /rm-structure, /adl-idiom, /terminology).