Agent skill

Karpathy

by tmdgusya in tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

Behavioral guardrails to prevent common LLM coding mistakes — enforces surgical changes, assumption verification, and scope discipline before and during implementation.

No licenceAuto-check passedAI & LLM Engineering

Install Karpathy

skills CLI
$ npx skills add tmdgusya/engineering-discipline --skill karpathy -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install tmdgusya/engineering-discipline karpathy --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tmdgusya/engineering-discipline.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/karpathy .claude/skills/karpathy && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
karpathy
GitHub stars
125
Token cost
~2k tokens
SKILL.md length
1,134 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
11
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
None found

At a glance

Behavioral guardrails to prevent common LLM coding mistakes — enforces surgical changes, assumption verification, and scope discipline before and during implementation.

  • Works in 4 steps: Read before you write. Do not modify a… → Scope to the request. Change what was… → Verify, don't assume. If you think a… → …
  • Implementing features
  • SKILL.md covers Hard Gates, When To Use, When NOT To Use and The Five Rules, plus 5 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Karpathy is an agent skill from tmdgusya/engineering-discipline. Behavioral guardrails to prevent common LLM coding mistakes — enforces surgical changes, assumption verification, and scope discipline before and during implementation. Use when implementing features, modifying code, or when you notice yourself about to make changes without reading the existing code first.

Its SKILL.md is about 2k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in AI & LLM Engineering. The repository describes itself as: SKILL for engineering-discipline.

When your agent uses it

  • Implementing features
  • You notice yourself about to make changes without reading the existing code first

Example prompts

  • “/karpathy”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Read before you write. Do not modify a file you haven't read. Do not modify a function without understanding the callers. Do not modify a…
  2. Scope to the request. Change what was asked. Nothing more. No "while I'm here" improvements, no opportunistic refactoring, no adding…
  3. Verify, don't assume. If you think a function does X, read it. If you think a type has field Y, check it. If you think a test covers…
  4. Define success before starting. Before writing any code, state what "done" looks like in concrete, verifiable terms. If you can't define…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 137dead. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Karpathy loads about 2k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 79 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,134 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~79
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~2k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

Without a licence we can't republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 1,134 words (~1,988 tokens).

“A preventive thinking discipline for code implementation. Activates before and during code writing to block the most common mistakes LLMs make when generating code.”

— opening of SKILL.md by tmdgusya
name
karpathy

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/karpathy of tmdgusya/engineering-discipline.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 137dead

Compare with similar skills

Karpathy next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Karpathy compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Karpathy this skilltmdgusya/engineering-discipline125—~2kAutomated safety check: PassNone
AI Research Reproductionlllllllama/RigorPilot-Skills4971 repos~1.8kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Onnxtxtonnx/onnx22k—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Add Publication DocsRLinf/RLinf5.5k—~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Create Simple Promptpnp/copilot-prompts893—~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Google Agents CLI Adk Codepifferologo/cloud-agents-cli1291 repos~768Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0

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More from tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

All 11 skills in this repo
  • Clarification

    tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

    A skill your agent uses when a user's request is vague, ambiguous, or underspecified.

    125 GitHub stars~3.4k tokensUpdated 3 mo ago
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  • Clean AI Slop

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    Corrective cleanup of AI-generated code — removes LLM-specific patterns while preserving behavior.

    125 GitHub stars~1.9k tokensUpdated 3 mo ago
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  • Plan Crafting

    tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

    A skill your agent uses when a task's scope is clear and multi-step implementation is needed, before touching code.

    125 GitHub stars~4k tokensUpdated 3 mo ago
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  • Review Work

    tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

    Use after run-plan completes to independently verify the implementation.

    125 GitHub stars~2.5k tokensUpdated 3 mo ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Run Plan

    tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

    A skill your agent uses when you have a written implementation plan to execute.

    125 GitHub stars~4.6k tokensUpdated 3 mo ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Systematic Debugging

    tmdgusya/engineering-discipline

    A skill your agent uses when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior.

    125 GitHub stars~2k tokensUpdated 3 mo ago
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Questions about Karpathy

What does Karpathy do?

Behavioral guardrails to prevent common LLM coding mistakes — enforces surgical changes, assumption verification, and scope discipline before and during implementation. Karpathy is an agent skill from tmdgusya/engineering-discipline. Behavioral guardrails to prevent common LLM coding mistakes — enforces surgical changes, assumption verification, and scope discipline before and during implementation.

When should I use Karpathy?

Karpathy fits situations like: implementing features; you notice yourself about to make changes without reading the existing code first.

How do I install Karpathy in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add tmdgusya/engineering-discipline --skill karpathy -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/karpathy in tmdgusya/engineering-discipline) into .claude/skills/karpathy in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Karpathy in Codex?

Run `npx skills add tmdgusya/engineering-discipline --skill karpathy -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/karpathy in tmdgusya/engineering-discipline) into .agents/skills/karpathy in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Karpathy in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add tmdgusya/engineering-discipline --skill karpathy -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/karpathy, .gemini/skills/karpathy, .github/skills/karpathy and .opencode/skills/karpathy in your project.

What does Karpathy need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Karpathy is instructions for the agent only.

Does Karpathy access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Karpathy safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Karpathy use?

No licence was found for Karpathy or its repository. Without one, default copyright applies: ask the author before reusing or redistributing it.

How many tokens does Karpathy use?

About 2k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 8k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Karpathy?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Karpathy: AI Research Reproduction (lllllllama/RigorPilot-Skills, 497 stars), Onnxtxt (onnx/onnx, 22k stars), Add Publication Docs (RLinf/RLinf, 5.5k stars) and Create Simple Prompt (pnp/copilot-prompts, 893 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Karpathy?

tmdgusya (a GitHub user) maintains it in tmdgusya/engineering-discipline, which has 125 GitHub stars. The repository holds 11 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on July 3, 2026.

Source: tmdgusya/engineering-discipline on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.