dsh-ponytail

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<img src="./assets/logo.png" alt="@wenaixi/dsh-ponytail" width="128" height="128"><br/> <em>The best code is the code you never wrote.</em>

A DeepSeek Harness (DSH) port of DietrichGebert/ponytail, maintained independently (ADR-0010). Injects the 7-rung ladder directly into system prompts, provides 6 specialized skills, and registers zero tools.

What it is

A counter-weight to LLM boilerplate and over-engineering: deletion over addition, boring over clever, and fewest files possible. Challenge requirements before writing code (YAGNI), prioritize existing functions and standard libraries, and solve in one line when possible.

Features a Zero Cache Miss Architecture (ADR-0012): session baseline is locked permanently, and dynamic intensity switches take effect via turn-end reminders, leaving historical prompt / KV cache 100% untouched across long conversations. Ships as a pure dsh.bundle, writes zero garbage to your home root, uninstalls cleanly, and rebuilds itself through HMR.

Install

Needs the DSH runtime (npm i -g @deepseek-ai/dsh). Node and pnpm floors are in the badges above. Examples use the web profile; substitute your own profile name.

# Install (automatic HMR reload)
dsh plugin --profile web add @wenaixi/dsh-ponytail

# Remove
dsh plugin --profile web remove @wenaixi/dsh-ponytail

# Inspect composed patch tree
dsh --profile web --dump-config | grep -A2 ponytail

Usage

/ponytail            Switch to full mode (all 7 rungs active)
/ponytail lite       Do the bare minimum
/ponytail ultra      Challenge the requirement itself first
/ponytail off        Disable injection
/ponytail default lite   Persist default across sessions
stop ponytail        Equivalent to off (exact match)

Intensity levels reset on each new session according to env > Profile patch > fallback full. Therefore, /ponytail <level> is session-scoped. To persist across restarts and new sessions, use /ponytail default <level>.

Zero Cache Miss Architecture

When switching intensity levels within an ongoing session or updating global default configurations, the top-level SystemPrompt baseline remains strictly byte-identical and static.

Mode transitions take effect dynamically by appending an incremental system notification (<system-reminder>) at the end of the current turn's user message (aligned with the official dsh-tool-skill catalog update pattern, ADR-0012). This 100% protects historical KV Cache / Prompt Cache across all multi-turn conversation history, eliminating costly prefill recalculations and latency spikes.

Skills

Skill	Description
/ponytail	Core mode: 7-rung ladder, lazy senior dev mindset
/ponytail-review	Over-engineering code review: hunt for code that can be deleted
/ponytail-audit	Whole-repo complexity audit, ranked by deletion yield
/ponytail-debt	Harvest ponytail: comments into an actionable debt ledger
/ponytail-gain	Minimal metrics dashboard showing code reduction benchmarks
/ponytail-help	Quick reference card for modes, commands, and skills

Skill Bodies and Description Languages

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