PluginBench
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Audit score 90

ponytail-gain

dietrichgebert/ponytail

Display ponytail's measured benchmark impact as a compact ASCII scoreboard.

What is ponytail-gain?

Shows ponytail's published benchmark medians across five everyday tasks and three models, displaying reductions in lines of code and cost plus speed improvements. Triggered by commands like '/ponytail-gain' or 'show ponytail impact'—a one-shot display that makes no persistent changes.

  • Renders ASCII bar chart showing lines-of-code reduction (6–20% of original)
  • Displays cost reduction metrics (23–53% of original)
  • Shows speed improvement (3–6× faster)
  • References /ponytail-debt for deferred shortcuts in current repo
  • References /ponytail-audit for remaining cuttable code
  • One-shot display with no mode changes or file persistence

How to install ponytail-gain

npx skills add https://github.com/dietrichgebert/ponytail --skill ponytail-gain
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How to use ponytail-gain

  1. 1.Trigger the skill with '/ponytail-gain', 'ponytail gain', 'what does ponytail save', 'show ponytail impact', or 'ponytail scoreboard'
  2. 2.View the rendered ASCII scoreboard showing lines-of-code, cost, and speed metrics
  3. 3.Use /ponytail-debt or /ponytail-audit commands for repo-specific analysis if needed

Use cases

Good for
  • Quick overview of ponytail's general effectiveness before adopting it
  • Justifying ponytail adoption to team members with concrete benchmarks
  • Understanding typical savings across email validators, debounce, CSV sum, countdown timers, and rate limiters
  • Comparing impact across Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus models
Who it's for
  • Developers evaluating code-generation tools
  • Teams considering ponytail adoption
  • Engineers wanting to understand benchmark-based savings claims

ponytail-gain FAQ

Are these numbers specific to my repository?

No. These are published benchmark medians from five everyday tasks across three models (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus). Per-repo figures come only from /ponytail-debt (a counted ledger) or /ponytail-audit.

What tasks are included in the benchmark?

Email validator, debounce, CSV sum, countdown timer, and rate limiter.

Does this skill change my mode or write files?

No. It is a one-shot display only. Use 'stop ponytail' or 'normal mode' to revert.

Where do the benchmark numbers come from?

The benchmarks/ directory and the README, which contain measured medians across the five tasks and three models.

Full instructions (SKILL.md)

Source of truth, from dietrichgebert/ponytail.


name: ponytail-gain description: > Show ponytail's measured impact as a compact scoreboard: less code, less cost, more speed, from the benchmark medians. One-shot display, not a persistent mode, and not a per-repo number. Trigger: /ponytail-gain, "ponytail gain", "what does ponytail save", "show ponytail impact", "ponytail scoreboard".

Ponytail Gain

Display this scoreboard when invoked. One-shot: do NOT change mode, write flag files, or persist anything.

The figures are the published benchmark medians (5 everyday tasks: email validator, debounce, CSV sum, countdown timer, rate limiter; three models: Haiku, Sonnet, Opus). They are measured, not computed from the current repo. Source: benchmarks/ and the README.

Scoreboard

Render plain ASCII bars. The bar length shows the measured range; the label carries the exact figure:

  ponytail gain                     benchmark median · 5 tasks · 3 models

  Lines of code   no-skill  ████████████████████  100%
                  ponytail  ██▌·················    6–20%   ▼ 80–94%
  Cost            no-skill  ████████████████████  100%
                  ponytail  █████▌··············   23–53%  ▼ 47–77%
  Speed           ponytail  ▸ 3–6× faster

  This repo:  /ponytail-debt  (shortcuts you deferred)
              /ponytail-audit (what's still cuttable)

Honesty boundary

These are benchmark medians, not this repo. NEVER print a per-repo savings number ("you saved X lines/tokens here"): the unbuilt version was never written, so there is no real baseline to subtract from in a live repo. The only real per-repo figures come from /ponytail-debt (a counted ledger), and this card points there instead of inventing one.

Boundaries

One-shot display. Edits nothing, changes no mode. "stop ponytail" or "normal mode": revert.