Skip to content
cccskills
FreePublished on GitHub

karpathy-guidelines

Behavioral guidelines to reduce common LLM coding mistakes. Use when writing, reviewing, or refactoring code to avoid overcomplication, make surgical changes, surface assumptions, and define verifiable success criteria.

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

See how to install

Files included (1)

  • SKILL.md2.8 KB

SKILL.md (original)

Review the instructions the agent will receive before you install.

Attribution: Sourced from forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills by Jiayuan Zhang, licensed MIT. Modified for this collection.

Karpathy Guidelines

Behavioral guidelines to reduce common LLM coding mistakes, derived from Andrej Karpathy's observations on LLM coding pitfalls.

Tradeoff: These guidelines bias toward caution over speed. For trivial tasks, use judgment.

1. Think Before Coding

Don't assume. Don't hide confusion. Surface tradeoffs.

Before implementing:

  • State your assumptions explicitly. If uncertain, ask.
  • If multiple interpretations exist, present them - don't pick silently.
  • If a simpler approach exists, say so. Push back when warranted.
  • If something is unclear, stop. Name what's confusing. Ask.

2. Simplicity First

Minimum code that solves the problem. Nothing speculative.

  • No features beyond what was asked.
  • No abstractions for single-use code.
  • No "flexibility" or "configurability" that wasn't requested.
  • No error handling for impossible scenarios.
  • If you write 200 lines and it could be 50, rewrite it.

Ask yourself: "Would a senior engineer say this is overcomplicated?" If yes, simplify.

3. Surgical Changes

Touch only what you must. Clean up only your own mess.

When editing existing code:

  • Don't "improve" adjacent code, comments, or formatting.
  • Don't refactor things that aren't broken.
  • Match existing style, even if you'd do it differently.
  • If you notice unrelated dead code, mention it - don't delete it.

When your changes create orphans:

  • Remove imports/variables/functions that YOUR changes made unused.
  • Don't remove pre-existing dead code unless asked.

The test: Every changed line should trace directly to the user's request.

4. Goal-Driven Execution

Define success criteria. Loop until verified.

Transform tasks into verifiable goals:

  • "Add validation" → "Write tests for invalid inputs, then make them pass"
  • "Fix the bug" → "Write a test that reproduces it, then make it pass"
  • "Refactor X" → "Ensure tests pass before and after"

For multi-step tasks, state a brief plan:

1. [Step] → verify: [check]
2. [Step] → verify: [check]
3. [Step] → verify: [check]

Strong success criteria let you loop independently. Weak criteria ("make it work") require constant clarification.

Reviews

No reviews yet. Tell others what you thought.

Comments

No login needed. Share how it worked for you, ask a question, or note where it did not run.

No comments yet. Be the first to write one.

Comments are published right away. Do not include personal information such as email addresses or phone numbers. Up to 2 URLs.

0 / 1,000 characters

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA, and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

More skills from this repository

Use when long-lived agents, project memories, system prompts, or playbooks are repeatedly summarized, rewritten, or optimized and risk losing domain detail, provenance, or execution learnings.

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

mouadja02/skills10Updated Oct 22, 2026

Use this skill when the user explicitly asks to map, document, or onboard into an existing codebase. Trigger for prompts like "map this codebase", "document this architecture", "onboard me to this repo", or "create codebase docs". Do not trigger for routine feature implementation, bug fixes, or narrow code edits unless the user asks for repository-level discovery.

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

mouadja02/skills10Updated Oct 22, 2026

Adds educational comments to a code file so it becomes a learning resource, asking for the file (with a list of close matches) if none is given. Use when preparing code for learners, onboarding, or teaching.

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

mouadja02/skills10Updated Oct 22, 2026

Write, debug, and optimize Adobe Illustrator automation scripts using ExtendScript (JavaScript/JSX). Use when creating or modifying scripts that manipulate documents, layers, paths, text frames, colors, symbols, artboards, or any Illustrator DOM objects. Covers the complete JavaScript object model, coordinate system, measurement units, export workflows, and scripting best practices.

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

mouadja02/skills10Updated Oct 22, 2026

Patterns and techniques for adding governance, safety, and trust controls to AI agent systems. Use this skill when: - Building AI agents that call external tools (APIs, databases, file systems) - Implementing policy-based access controls for agent tool usage - Adding semantic intent classification to detect dangerous prompts - Creating trust scoring systems for multi-agent workflows - Building audit trails for agent actions and decisions - Enforcing rate limits, content filters, or tool restrictions on agents - Working with any agent framework (PydanticAI, CrewAI, OpenAI Agents, LangChain, AutoGen)

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

mouadja02/skills10Updated Oct 22, 2026

Check any AI agent codebase against the OWASP Agentic Security Initiative (ASI) Top 10 risks. Use this skill when: - Evaluating an agent system's security posture before production deployment - Running a compliance check against OWASP ASI 2026 standards - Mapping existing security controls to the 10 agentic risks - Generating a compliance report for security review or audit - Comparing agent framework security features against the standard - Any request like "is my agent OWASP compliant?", "check ASI compliance", or "agentic security audit"

The English summary is being prepared. Showing the original description.

mouadja02/skills10Updated Oct 22, 2026

See all skills by mouadja02

Report a problem with this skill