musk-algorithm

musk-algorithm is a cursor rule for Cursor from wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills. It costs 626 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

A five-step method for reviewing and simplifying engineering systems: question requirements, delete unnecessary parts, simplify what remains, make it faster, and automate it.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to clean up existing software and processes, or to guide the early design of a new application before adding speed improvements or automation.
Why use it?
It helps teams avoid spending time optimizing features, processes, or systems that should have been removed in the first place.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills/musk-algorithm
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills

Made for: Cursor.

Wrote 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.

agentmods badge for musk-algorithm

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills/musk-algorithm.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills/musk-algorithm)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills/musk-algorithm"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills/musk-algorithm.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 626 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 626 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00626 $0.00626
Opus 5 $0.00313 $0.00313
Sonnet 5 $0.00125 $0.00125
Haiku 4.5 $0.00063 $0.00063

Measured 4d ago against content hash 48f520d4bac8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

musk-algorithm 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 4d 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.

.cursor/rules/musk-algorithm.mdc · 54 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 54 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Musk Algorithm

Engineering guidelines derived from Elon Musk's 5-step algorithm. Bias toward deletion over preservation, and toward order over speed. For trivial tasks, use judgment.

Scope: Primarily for reviewing and cleaning up existing systems (brownfield). For greenfield application building, only steps 1, 2, 3 are actively useful and they shift meaning (step 2 becomes "default to no", steps 4 and 5 wait until v1 exists). For function-level coding behavior, pair this with andrej-karpathy-skills.

Order is mandatory. Do not advance to a later step until the earlier steps are visibly complete. Optimizing or automating something that should not exist is the most common engineering failure.

1. Question Every Requirement

Every requirement needs a named human. Then challenge it.

  • Every requirement must trace to a real, named person. "Compliance", "the team", "best practice", or "the customer" is not a name. If no name, default to delete.
  • Challenge the smartest-sounding requirements hardest.
  • Steelman first, then attack. Surface what would actually break.
  • Reformulate every survivor to be sharper.

2. Delete Any Part or Process You Can

Cut first. If you do not add back ~10%, you did not cut hard enough.

  • Propose deletion first for every feature, endpoint, table, column, service, dependency, config flag, document, meeting, and role.
  • Predict the add-back list before cutting. Zero prediction means the cut is theatrical.
  • Deleted code can hide invariants. Identify what the code asserts before removing it.
  • The 10% to 25% add-back band is the calibration zone.

3. Simplify and Optimize

Only after steps 1 and 2.

Before any optimization, write: "This exists because [named person] requires [steelmanned requirement] and removing it causes [specific failure]." If you cannot write it, return to step 1.

  • Reduce parameters, branches, special cases, and moving parts.
  • Match existing style. Do not refactor adjacent code that is not in scope.

Read the full file on GitHub · 54 lines

Changes

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.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 54 lines · 626 tokens per session scan A 48f520d4bac8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

musk-algorithm is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository wezendy/elon-musk-algorithm-skills (8 stars, last pushed 3mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 626 tokens to every session, about $0.0031 per session on Opus 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 2026-08-31.