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karpathy-guidelines SKILL.md skillA

karpathy-guidelines from qa-aman/claude-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add qa-aman/claude-skills/karpathy-guidelines@git:20260502.aea5066

Pins git:20260502.aea5066 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: qa-aman/claude-skills
Path: skills/by-role/engineer/karpathy-guidelines/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 3
Latest version: git:20260502.aea5066, committed May 2, 2026
First version recorded: Apr 20, 2026
Size: 7,680 bytes
Repository stars: 21
License: MIT

Behavioral guardrails against the six most common LLM coding failure modes. Apply on every coding task: writing, editing, reviewing, or refactoring.

Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.

What the file says

# Karpathy Guidelines

Six failure modes. Six rules. Apply all six on every coding task.

Inspired by [Andrej Karpathy's observations](https://x.com/karpathy/status/2015883857489522876) (Jan 2026).

## Compliance Checklist

Run this before each phase:

**Before writing code:** rules 1, 2, 4
**While editing:** rule 3
**Before claiming done:** rules 5, 6

- [ ] 1. Did I name every assumption I'm making?
- [ ] 2. Is my solution the minimum that satisfies the request?
- [ ] 3. Did I change only what the request requires?
- [ ] 4. Did I define a verifiable success condition before starting?
- [ ] 5. Do I have command output proving completion?
- [ ] 6. Does my diff do exactly one thing?

---

## 1. Name Every Assumption Before Writing Code

**Trigger:** At the start of any task where the request requires an implicit choice - a library, a data structure, an architecture decision, an interpretation of ambiguous scope.

**Rule:** State every assumption before writing a line. If a requirement has multiple valid interpretations, list them and declare which one you will implement. Do not silently pick.

**Do:**
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add qa-aman/claude-skills/karpathy-guidelines@sha256:fa31f564a0fef88d

The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260502.aea5066, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.

Badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_266nqcmwg7vpucjv.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_266nqcmwg7vpucjv)

1 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.

Versions

The registry has recorded 3 versions of this file, between Apr 20, 2026 and May 2, 2026, about one every 6 days.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
git:20260502.aea5066 latest	2026-05-02	aea5066	7,680 B	A	view · diff
git:20260502.605bc56	2026-05-02	605bc56	7,678 B	A	view · diff
git:20260420.a5f389f	2026-04-20	a5f389f	3,735 B	A	view

Audit of the latest version

A 17 of 17 checks passed. Fixed automatic checks with no AI involved, so the same checks give the same answer every run.

pass: Frontmatter block present
pass: Frontmatter declares a name
pass: Frontmatter declares a description
pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (7680 bytes)
pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
pass: No credential-shaped string
pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
pass: No text hidden with inline styles
pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
pass: No link to a raw IP address
pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

qa-aman/claude-skills · 21 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-19 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_266nqcmwg7vpucjv
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=qa-aman/claude-skills/karpathy-guidelines
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/fa31f564a0fef88d28811bc067e92541ddc6f7f68b233bea8a3fe409eda650d5

Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.

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