name: ponytail-gain
description: "Show ponytail measured impact as a scoreboard: less code, less cost, more speed, from the agentic benchmark averages. One-shot display."
homepage: https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail
license: MIT
Ponytail Gain
Display this scoreboard when invoked. One-shot: do NOT change mode, write flag
files, or persist anything.
The figures are the published agentic benchmark of Ponytail 5: headless Claude
Code (Opus 5.5, default effort) on 39 tasks (feature tickets in a real FastAPI +
React repo, bug fixes, security and privacy cases, small apps), 5 runs each,
against the same agent without the skill. 18 of the tasks have hidden checks
for correctness and safety. Each figure is the geometric mean of the per-task
medians. They are measured, not computed from the current repo.
Source: benchmarks/results/2026-10-07-agentic.md and the README.
Scoreboard
Render plain ASCII bars. The bar length shows ponytail as a share of the
no-skill baseline; the label carries the exact figure:
ponytail gain benchmark · 39 tasks × 5 runs · Opus 5.5
no-skill ████████████████████ 100%
Lines of code █████████··········· 47% ▼ 53%
Output tokens ███████████········· 55% ▼ 45%
Cost ███████████████····· 74% ▼ 26%
Time ████████████········ 59% ▼ 41%
Hidden checks passed 97% (no-skill 96%)
Tests where the logic needs one 98% (no-skill 68%)
This repo: /ponytail-debt (shortcuts you deferred)
/ponytail-audit (what's still cuttable)
Honesty boundary
These are benchmark averages, 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.
- How do I install ponytail-gain?
- Download .openclaw/skills/ponytail-gain/SKILL.md from the publisher, or copy the path and open the repository. PlugMCP lists the skill and does not host the file.
- Where does ponytail-gain live?
- The publisher keeps it at https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail.
- Which agents can use ponytail-gain?
- Claude, Cursor, and Codex can read a SKILL.md you add from the publisher's repository.