ponytail
DietrichGebert/ponytail · Updated
Makes your AI agent think like the laziest senior dev in the room. The best code is the code you never wrote.
DietrichGebert/ponytail is a JavaScript repository in the AI Agents category with 179,704 stars and 9,850 forks on GitHub, released under the MIT license, last updated today.
How to install ponytail in your AI client
Setup for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, Cline and VS Code — copy-paste ready.
How to install ponytail in Claude CodeAnthropic's agentic CLI
Clone & open
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.git cd ponytail claudeLet Claude read it
Ask “/init” to generate a CLAUDE.md, then have Claude explain, run, or extend the codebase. It reads files on demand.
How to install ponytail in Claude DesktopDesktop app (MCP config)
Clone the repository
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.gitOpen in your AI editor
Open the folder in your assistant and ask it to index the codebase, then reference files in chat.
How to install ponytail in CursorAI-first code editor
Clone & open in Cursor
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.gitIndex & chat
Open the folder — Cursor indexes it automatically. Use @Codebase in chat to ask about it or scaffold from it.
How to install ponytail in Codex CLIOpenAI coding agent
Clone
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.gitPoint Codex at it
Run codex in the repo root; add setup notes to AGENTS.md so the agent knows how to build & test.
How to install ponytail in WindsurfCodeium's agentic IDE
Clone & open
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.gitUse Cascade
Windsurf indexes the workspace; ask Cascade to explain or reuse modules from the repo.
How to install ponytail in ClineVS Code autonomous agent
Clone the repository
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.gitOpen in your AI editor
Open the folder in your assistant and ask it to index the codebase, then reference files in chat.
How to install ponytail in VS CodeCopilot / MCP support
Clone the repository
bashgit clone https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.gitOpen in your AI editor
Open the folder in your assistant and ask it to index the codebase, then reference files in chat.
Documentation
Full READMEPonytail
<em>He says nothing. He writes one line. It works.</em>
<strong>Ponytail 5: rebuilt from the ground up.</strong> <strong>-53% code · -41% time · -26% cost · -45% tokens</strong> <strong>And yet: 98% of risky logic ships with a test.</strong> Without Ponytail: 68%. <sub>Benchmarked in Claude Code, the same agent with and without the skill: 39 tasks including a real FastAPI + React repo, Opus 5.5, 5 runs each. Details.</sub>
<sub>Español · 한국어 · 简体中文 · 日本語</sub>
Already built with Ponytail
You know him. Long ponytail. Oval glasses. Has been at the company longer than the version control. You show him fifty lines; he looks at them, says nothing, and replaces them with one.
Ponytail puts him inside your AI agent.
Numbers
Two things the chart does not show: in a blind comparison, Ponytail 5's replies beat the previous Ponytail's 110 to 67. And on the six security tasks (SQL injection, path traversal, forged tokens, rate limiting, malformed CSV rows, caching) it passed all 30 runs: less code, no less safe. Method, per-task tables and limits: benchmarks/results/2026-10-07-agentic.md.
The rule was never "fewest tokens." It is: write only what the task needs, and never cut validation, error handling, security, or accessibility. The code ends up small because it is necessary, not golfed. Lower cost and latency are a side effect.
Before / after
You ask for a date picker. Without Ponytail, the agent installs a date picker library or builds a whole calendar by hand: 335 lines. Ponytail 5 first looks at what is already there: the repo has an Input component, and every browser has a date picker. It puts the two together. 10 lines.
Excerpt — the full document is on GitHub.
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