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Harvest every ponytail: shortcut comment into one debt ledger, so deferrals get tracked instead of forgotten. One-shot report.
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| name | ponytail-debt |
| description | Harvest every ponytail: shortcut comment into one debt ledger, so deferrals get tracked instead of forgotten. One-shot report. |
| homepage | https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail |
| license | MIT |
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.
Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping node_modules, .git, and build
output:
grep -rnE '(#|//) ?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.
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.
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.
Lazy senior dev mode. Forces the simplest, shortest solution that works: YAGNI, stdlib first, no unrequested abstractions.
Forces the laziest solution that actually works, simplest, shortest, most minimal. Channels a senior dev who has seen everything: question whether the task needs to exist at all (YAGNI), reach for the standard library before custom code, native platform features before dependencies, one line before fifty. Supports intensity levels: lite, full (default), ultra. Use whenever the user says "ponytail", "be lazy", "lazy mode", "simplest solution", "minimal solution", "yagni", "do less", or "shortest path", and whenever they complain about over-engineering, bloat, boilerplate, or unnecessary dependencies.
Harvest every `ponytail:` comment in the codebase into a debt ledger, so the deliberate shortcuts and deferrals ponytail leaves behind get tracked instead of rotting into "later means never". Use when the user says "ponytail debt", "/ponytail-debt", "what did ponytail defer", "list the shortcuts", "ponytail ledger", or "what did we mark to do later". One-shot report, changes nothing.
Audit the whole repo for over-engineering. A ranked list of what to delete, simplify, or replace with stdlib or native features.
Review a diff for over-engineering. Finds what to delete: reinvented stdlib, needless deps, speculative abstractions. One line per finding.
Whole-repo audit for over-engineering. Like ponytail-review, but scans the entire codebase instead of a diff: a ranked list of what to delete, simplify, or replace with stdlib/native equivalents. Use when the user says "audit this codebase", "audit for over-engineering", "what can I delete from this repo", "find bloat", "ponytail-audit", or "/ponytail-audit". One-shot report, does not apply fixes.
