Mesteriis Karpathy Guidelines
Use this skill when the main risk is agent overconfidence, assumption drift, overengineering, dead code, or silent confusion.
This is a Codex-native adaptation of compact coding-agent discipline rules. It
composes with quality-gates, engineering-standards, and language skills.
Rules
Think Before Coding
- Restate the intended behavior.
- Inspect relevant files before editing.
- Identify the smallest change that can work.
- Name one assumption that could be false.
Ask Instead Of Guessing
Ask or verify when:
- the target behavior has multiple interpretations;
- the repository convention is unclear;
- a command, API, schema, or package manager is unconfirmed;
- a change could affect data, security, billing, or production behavior.
Keep It Boring
- Prefer direct code over speculative abstractions.
- Do not create a framework for one use case.
- Do not add dependencies for trivial behavior.
- Do not write code that only demonstrates cleverness.
Clean As You Go
- Remove dead code introduced by the change.
- Do not leave fake TODO implementation.
- Keep names specific to the domain.
- Keep final diffs reviewable.
Self-Check
Before finalizing, answer briefly:
Self-check:
- What assumption did I verify?
- What did I deliberately keep simple?
- What dead or speculative code did I avoid?
Output
When this skill materially affects work, report:
- challenged assumption;
- chosen simple path;
- validation;
- any remaining uncertainty.