By name: karpathy-guidelines description: "Karpathy-inspired behavioural guidance for non-trivial coding, debugging, review, or refactor work. Use to surface assumptions, keep changes minimal, and define verifiable success criteria." version: 1.0.0
/karpathy-guidelines
Behavioural checklist for non-trivial coding, debugging, refactoring, and code
review work. The full text is also loaded into every session via
common/karpathy-guidelines constraint during /init.
When to apply
- Any implementation work beyond a single obvious line fix
- Debugging sessions
- Refactors that touch more than one file
- Code review
The four rules
1. Think before coding
State material assumptions before writing code. Surface tradeoffs. Stop and ask when ambiguity changes the solution shape. Prefer a short plan + verification step over diving straight into implementation.
2. Simplicity first
Write the minimum code that fully solves the stated problem.
- Do not add features, configurability, or abstractions not requested.
- Do not build reusable infrastructure for a one-off need.
- Do not add defensive complexity for scenarios that cannot happen.
- Three similar lines > a premature abstraction.
3. Surgical changes
Touch only the code needed for the requested outcome.
- Do not refactor adjacent code just because you noticed it.
- Do not rewrite comments, formatting, or APIs unrelated to the task.
- Match local project patterns unless asked to change direction.
- Clean up only unused imports/variables created by your own change.
- Call out unrelated debt separately instead of silently fixing it.
Every changed line must be traceable to the user request or to verification required by that request.
4. Goal-driven execution
Turn vague instructions into concrete success criteria and verify them.
- Prefer reproduction-first debugging: identify a failing check, then make it pass.
- Prefer before-and-after validation for refactors.
- State a short plan for multi-step work with a verification step for each stage.
- Do not claim completion without evidence from tests, builds, linters, or another concrete check.
Tradeoff
This skill favours correctness and caution over raw speed on non-trivial work. Apply judgment on obvious one-liners — do not over-engineer the process.
Source
Adapted from forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills (MIT) for this repository template.