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nanogpt SKILL.md skillA

nanogpt from orchestra-research/ai-research-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.

Install it, pinned

mdr add orchestra-research/ai-research-skills/nanogpt@v1.0.0

Pins v1.0.0 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.

Audit grade: A, 17 of 17 checks passed
Kind: SKILL.md skill
Repository: orchestra-research/ai-research-skills
Path: 01-model-architecture/nanogpt/SKILL.md
Versions recorded: 5
Latest version: v1.0.0, committed Nov 20, 2025
First version recorded: Nov 8, 2025
Size: 6,752 bytes
Repository stars: 13,718
License: MIT

Educational GPT implementation in ~300 lines. Reproduces GPT-2 (124M) on OpenWebText. Clean, hackable code for learning transformers. By Andrej Karpathy. Perfect for understanding GPT architecture from scratch. Train on Shakespeare (CPU) or OpenWebText (multi-GPU).

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

# nanoGPT - Minimalist GPT Training

## Quick start

nanoGPT is a simplified GPT implementation designed for learning and experimentation.

**Installation**:
```bash
pip install torch numpy transformers datasets tiktoken wandb tqdm
```

**Train on Shakespeare** (CPU-friendly):
```bash
# Prepare data
python data/shakespeare_char/prepare.py

# Train (5 minutes on CPU)
python train.py config/train_shakespeare_char.py

# Generate text
python sample.py --out_dir=out-shakespeare-char
```

**Output**:
```
ROMEO:
What say'st thou? Shall I speak, and be a man?

JULIET:
I am afeard, and yet I'll speak; for thou art
One that hath been a man, and yet I know not
What thou art.
```

## Common workflows

### Workflow 1: Character-level Shakespeare

**Complete training pipeline**:
```bash
# Step 1: Prepare data (creates train.bin, val.bin)
python data/shakespeare_char/prepare.py

# Step 2: Train small model
python train.py config/train_shakespeare_char.py

# Step 3: Generate text
python sample.py --out_dir=out-shakespeare-char
```

**Config** (`config/train_shakespeare_char.py`):
```python
# Model config
n_layer = 6          # 6 transformer layers
n_head = 6           # 6 attention heads
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

The exact contents, by fingerprint

mdr add orchestra-research/ai-research-skills/nanogpt@sha256:8893d8dd5b7ba4ae

The line at the top of this page pins the label v1.0.0, 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_yiru45ktlixwfg7h.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_yiru45ktlixwfg7h)

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

Versions

The registry has recorded 5 versions of this file, between Nov 8, 2025 and Nov 20, 2025, about one every 3 days.

version	committed	commit	size	audit
v1.0.0 latest	2025-11-20	0a9ded4	6,752 B	A	view · diff
v1.0.0	2025-11-20	72c8b2c	6,752 B	A	view · diff
v1.0.0	2025-11-20	f38509b	6,751 B	A	view · diff
v1.0.0	2025-11-19	bd4461f	6,750 B	A	view · diff
git:20251108.bd4d209	2025-11-08	bd4d209	6,514 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 (6752 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

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills · 13,718 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-11 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_yiru45ktlixwfg7h
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=orchestra-research/ai-research-skills/nanogpt
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/8893d8dd5b7ba4ae3219497e26d33fc9565e6bbf0d6aa4d6c1c3ee05003468c3

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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