ponytail-audit

name

ponytail-audit

description

Whole-repo audit for over-engineering. Like ponytail-review, but scans the entire codebase instead of a diff: writes a ranked checklist to plans/AUDIT.md 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", or calls ponytail-audit. One-shot report, does not apply fixes.

ponytail-review, repo-wide. Scan the whole tree instead of a diff. Rank findings biggest cut first. Write output to plans/AUDIT.md as a structured checklist consumable by ponytail-fix.

Tags

Same as ponytail-review:

• delete: dead code, unused flexibility, speculative feature. Replacement: nothing.
• stdlib: hand-rolled thing the standard library ships. Name the function.
• native: dependency or code doing what the platform already does. Name the feature.
• yagni: abstraction with one implementation, config nobody sets, layer with one caller.
• shrink: same logic, fewer lines. Show the shorter form.

Hunt

Deps the stdlib or platform already ships, single-implementation interfaces, factories with one product, wrappers that only delegate, files exporting one thing, dead flags and config, hand-rolled stdlib.

Output

Write findings to plans/AUDIT.md as a ranked checklist. Format each finding as a markdown checklist item with the tag as a heading:

### `<tag>:` `<one-line summary>`

Description of the finding, including file paths and estimated savings.

- [ ] `path/to/file.go:L<N>` — what to change and why
- [ ] `path/to/other.go:L<N>` — what to change and why

End with:

---

**Net estimate: ~-<N> lines, ~-<M> deps.** All replacements use existing stdlib
or in-repo consolidation. No new dependencies introduced.

If nothing to cut: Lean already. Ship.

Notes

• plans/ is gitignored. AUDIT.md is never committed.
• After writing AUDIT.md, invoke ponytail-fix to work through items.
• Merge into an existing AUDIT.md if one exists: preserve completed (✅) items and append new findings.
• Scope: over-engineering and complexity only. Correctness bugs, security holes, and performance are explicitly out of scope. Route them to the @reviewer subagent instead. Lists findings, applies nothing. One-shot.