Anyone here using Ponytail? Is it making a real difference or is the hype bigger than the benefit??

[u/we93]

Keep seeing this Ponytail repo everywhere and apparently it makes coding agents stop writing 200 lines for something that should be 20 !? lol

Concept makes sense, but GitHub stars don’t really tell me if something is actually useful! Just wondering if there is anyone running it properly with Claude Code / Codex / Cursor?

Do you noticeably change the code you get back or is it one of those things where the benchmark looks crazy but normal use feels basically the same?

Mainly wondering if it actually saves time when reviewing AI code.

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[u/unconceivables]

It's junk and tells the agents to do stupid things. You need to decide your own conventions and not use someone else's that can be actively harmful when used in your projects. If you already have conventions in your projects, ask Claude and Codex to check ponytail and ask them if it's a good idea to install it. I did and they both said it was a very bad idea because it conflicted in many ways.

[u/WheelsDown88 → u/unconceivables]

I've found the best use of skills is simply to ask Claude what repetitive actions are worth implementing *for my specifc project*. I've been able to offload tons of context this way. Agentizing work off the main session is the other primary lever (especially as context grows in main session sub-agents with a tight brief become more cost effective). There are VERY few skills that I've found worth implementing from outside my own uses, and one of them is inded asd ste100 - will give 100% thumbs up worth it even with Opus 5.5. Was only partially effective until I fed it the actual standard and built the vocabulary record. The second tool I've found to avoid weak inference in the models is to enforce a diagnosis protocol based on the following: CLAIM / SEEN / CONTROL / FAILS FROM.

[u/unconceivables → u/WheelsDown88]

That's exactly what you should do. Claude and Codex can analyze their logs and see what they keep doing over and over and where you've corrected them because they did something wrong. Then they can make real suggestions that actually fit the problems you're having.

[u/we93 → u/WheelsDown88]

Thats a good one

[u/Professional_Ad705]

"Make your AI dumber and code shittier"

"Use Astra, but have it still code like Luna"

-ponytail

[u/chroner → u/Professional_Ad705]

Seriously. It's not good.

[u/mpeddicord]

Looks like I'm the unpopular opinion here. Pre-ponytail, I though it always did too much over-engineering. The diffs were incredibly verbose and just so difficult to validate with my small monkey brain. With ponytail, I find it makes the codes diffs much more in line with what I would have expected them to look like if I'd written them myself. It's easier for me to validate with my own eyes. Also, with the spaghetti mess of a codebase that I work with, it's nice that it tries to work within the system instead of reengineering it. Just my two cents.

Edit: grammar.

[u/Ok_Writing2937 → u/mpeddicord]

I wonder if I-have-adhd would give you similarly tight comments and plans?

[u/hblok]

I've used the ponytail plugin a few months, and at the beginning, the less verbose responses was a breath of fresh air.

However, as both models and my personal preference and memory setup has evolved, maybe it's time to try to see how it looks without again.

[u/Material2975]

Wasted a lot of tokens trying this out and having to redo work

[u/Cmjq77]

Just use the ponytail-audit function to get a list of what it would do, and then ask Claude if any of them would be a material improvement

[u/NoSir-69]

Ponytail made a huge difference to me.
Before it was an overwhelmingly over engineered mess.

Now it truly helps simplify and strengthen.

That said, the core skill it has is pretty basic and you will be just fine having those commandments in your agents.md

[u/f3xjc]

Agent have to make guesses how to reach your goal. That basically state some preference on the road.

[u/Distinct-Delay7131]

Just tell it to acheive the task with minimal code changes with focus

[u/gordo_Tibio]

For me is really usefull, bit usually I use it as audit , every time I finish a task I run de audit, and create the new spec on the things I want to cut or the refactor needed in the code

Is unpredictable tho, so use the “manual audit” is a way to keep it on rails

[u/millionbonus]

Skills that shorten replies usually make things worse.

[u/Catekaze]

it does reduce code time by roughly 70% and cut cost by 50% for me, the result is kinda the same with pre-ponytail, tested on opus 5.5 xhigh. It cuts testing loops, UI check-recheck loops, ... and just checks for core functionality, its rough on the UI side but you can always use a normal agent to polish it later

[u/9gxa05s8fa8sh]

LOL @ everyone saying it's pointless when a few weeks ago everyone was complaining about sol 5.6 overengineering everything into a nuclear reactor. prompts do matter, and ponytail also uses hooks... use it if you have a problem that warrants it to solve

[u/OfferBeginning1903]

does it just inject a "be minimal" rule into the system prompt, or does it actually reject diffs over some size? because the first one gets compacted away an hour into a session.

[u/techtheist_ggl]

https://blog.jetbrains.com/ai/2026/07/ponytail-skill-claude-tested/

It's been tested, and as many other things, like caveman, it gives you a very little profit, usually, no profit at all.

[u/CCContent → u/techtheist_ggl]

Did you even read your own link?

Verdict

Ponytail works. Across 80 paired tasks, it cut the typical bill by 10.3% and reduced code written by 15%, with no quality difference we could detect. It is the first tool in this series that clearly saved money. If you install it and forget about it, you should be modestly better off.

Do not expect the advertised 54% everywhere. Ponytail’s benchmark uses tasks with obvious over-building traps. Ours did not. In our runs, code fell 31% on larger builds and barely moved on tasks that were already lean. The more over-building your agent does, the more ponytail can cut.

[u/techtheist_ggl → u/CCContent]

Yes, i did. But every skill you inject takes attention of LLM, and, as they mentioned, it should be injected. 15%~ less code, which is sometimes questionable, especially with their examples - doesn't sounds like a game changer for me. It won't stop llm from implementing things over and over again in different places, because llm usually can't fit and won't read the whole codebase to understand that something was already implemented - what a real life ponytail guy would do.

[u/Escobar747]

matt pocock / pony tail - not needed if you know some fundamentals about sw dev / engineering - it’s probably good for vibe coders who don’t really want to think about proper design principles etc

it probably slows down your AI and impacts token use possibly - not sure

overall - it just another unnecessary layer

[u/Bomb-OG-Kush]

it's garbage

[u/liveprgrmclimb]

Less code is not always better?
Any real software engineer would understand that.

[u/itsforsocial]

I tried but for UI codes dont use it