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.
npx skills add mirkobozzetto/espresso --skill ponytail-helpgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mirkobozzetto/espressoWrote 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/skills/mirkobozzetto/espresso/ponytail-help)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mirkobozzetto/espresso/ponytail-help"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mirkobozzetto/espresso/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/skills/mirkobozzetto/espresso/ponytail-help"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mirkobozzetto/espresso/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 | $0.00056 | $0.00752 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00022 | $0.00301 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00011 | $0.00150 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00006 | $0.00075 |
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.
This is a copy
91% identical to ponytail-help — 27 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 72 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Ponytail Help
Display this reference card when invoked. One-shot, do NOT change mode, write flag files, or persist anything.
Levels
| Level | Trigger | What change |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | /ponytail lite |
Build what's asked, name the lazier alternative in one line. |
| Full | /ponytail |
The ladder enforced: YAGNI → stdlib → native → one line → minimum. Default. |
| Ultra | /ponytail ultra |
YAGNI extremist. Deletion before addition. Challenges requirements before building. |
Level sticks until changed or session end.
Skills
| Skill | Trigger | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ponytail | /ponytail |
Lazy mode itself. Simplest solution that works. |
| ponytail-review | /ponytail-review |
Over-engineering review: L42: yagni: factory, one product. Inline. |
| ponytail-audit | /ponytail-audit |
Whole-repo over-engineering audit: ranked list of what to delete. |
| ponytail-debt | /ponytail-debt |
Harvest ponytail: shortcut comments into a tracked ledger. |
| ponytail-gain | /ponytail-gain |
Measured-impact scoreboard: less code, less cost, more speed. |
| ponytail-help | /ponytail-help |
This card. |
In Codex CLI and the IDE extension, invoke skills with $ponytail:ponytail,
$ponytail:ponytail-review, or $ponytail:ponytail-help. Claude Code and OpenCode use the
slash-command forms above (OpenCode ships all six as slash commands).
Deactivate
Say "stop ponytail" or "normal mode". Resume anytime with /ponytail.
/ponytail off also works.
Configure Default Mode
Default mode = full, auto-active every session. Change it:
Environment variable (highest priority):
export PONYTAIL_DEFAULT_MODE=ultra
Config file (~/.config/ponytail/config.json, Windows: %APPDATA%\ponytail\config.json):
{ "defaultMode": "lite" }
Set "off" to disable auto-activation on session start, activate manually
with /ponytail when wanted.
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 First seen · 72 lines · 56 tokens per session scan A dd07abd59ef4
ponytail-help is a skill published in the GitHub repository mirkobozzetto/espresso (25 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 56 tokens to every session and 752 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 91% identical to ponytail-help, differing in 27 lines, and is treated as a copy.
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