ponytail-gain · diff
git:20260618.15749f7 to git:20261005.8c0cccf
16 added, 14 removed. Audit A to A.
---
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
+ cost, more speed, from the agentic benchmark averages. 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.
+ The figures are the published agentic benchmark averages: a headless Claude
+ Code session (Haiku 4.5) doing 12 feature tickets on a real FastAPI + React
+ repo, each task averaged over 4 runs, against the same agent without the
+ skill, plus 6 safety tasks. They are measured, not computed from the current
+ repo. Source: `benchmarks/results/2026-06-18-agentic.md` and the README.
## Scoreboard
- Render plain ASCII bars. The bar length shows the measured range; the label
- carries the exact figure:
+ 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 median · 5 tasks · 3 models
+ ponytail gain benchmark average · 12 tasks · Haiku 4.5
- 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
+ no-skill ████████████████████ 100%
+ Lines of code █████████··········· 46% ▼ 54%
+ Tokens ████████████████···· 78% ▼ 22%
+ Cost ████████████████···· 80% ▼ 20%
+ Time ███████████████····· 73% ▼ 27%
+ Safety kept 100% (validation, error handling, security)
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
+ 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.
"stop ponytail" or "normal mode": revert.