Ponytail debt skill

Harvest every ponytail: shortcut comment into one debt ledger, so deferrals get tracked instead of forgotten.

by DietrichGebert·MIT license·★ 153,538 Stars on the repo·GitHub ↗

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Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a ponytail: comment naming its ceiling and upgrade path. This collects them into one ledger so a deferral can't quietly become permanent.

Scan

Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping node_modules, .git, and build output:

grep -rnE --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=node_modules --exclude-dir=dist --exclude-dir=build '(#|//|/[*]) ?ponytail:' . (add other comment prefixes if your stack uses them)

Each hit is one ledger row. The comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions the convention out of the ledger.

Output

One row per marker, grouped by file:

<file>:<line>, <what was simplified>. ceiling: <the limit named>. upgrade: <the trigger to revisit>.

The convention is ponytail: <ceiling>, <upgrade path>, so pull the ceiling and the trigger straight from the comment. Want an owner per row too? add git blame -L<line>,<line>.

Flag the rot risk: any ponytail: comment that names no upgrade path or trigger gets a no-trigger tag, those are the ones that silently rot.

End with <N> markers, <M> with no trigger. Nothing found: No ponytail: debt. Clean ledger.

Boundaries

Reads and reports only, changes nothing. To persist it, ask and it writes the ledger to a file (e.g. PONYTAIL-DEBT.md). One-shot. "stop ponytail-debt" or "normal mode" to revert.

1---
2name: ponytail-debt
3description: "Harvest every ponytail: shortcut comment into one debt ledger, so deferrals get tracked instead of forgotten. One-shot report."
4homepage: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail
5license: MIT
6---
7 
8Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a `ponytail:` comment naming
9its ceiling and upgrade path. This collects them into one ledger so a deferral
10can't quietly become permanent.
11 
12## Scan
13 
14Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping `node_modules`, `.git`, and build
15output:
16 
17`grep -rnE --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=node_modules --exclude-dir=dist --exclude-dir=build '(#|//|/[*]) ?ponytail:' .` (add other comment prefixes if your stack uses them)
18 
19Each hit is one ledger row. The comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions
20the convention out of the ledger.
21 
22## Output
23 
24One row per marker, grouped by file:
25 
26`<file>:<line>, <what was simplified>. ceiling: <the limit named>. upgrade: <the trigger to revisit>.`
27 
28The convention is `ponytail: <ceiling>, <upgrade path>`, so pull the ceiling
29and the trigger straight from the comment. Want an owner per row too? add
30`git blame -L<line>,<line>`.
31 
32Flag the rot risk: any `ponytail:` comment that names no upgrade path or
33trigger gets a `no-trigger` tag, those are the ones that silently rot.
34 
35End with `<N> markers, <M> with no trigger.` Nothing found: `No ponytail: debt. Clean ledger.`
36 
37## Boundaries
38 
39Reads and reports only, changes nothing. To persist it, ask and it writes the
40ledger to a file (e.g. `PONYTAIL-DEBT.md`). One-shot. "stop ponytail-debt" or
41"normal mode" to revert.
42 

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