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.
Overview
The Karpathy Guidelines skill, hosted in the popular mxyhi/ok-skills repository which has earned over 400 stars, provides a structured behavioral framework for AI agents to minimize common programming errors. This coding-focused skill is designed for compatibility with agents like Claude, Cursor, and Codex. It instructs the AI to prioritize surgical code modifications over broad rewrites, helping to prevent unnecessary complexity in software projects. By surfacing underlying technical assumptions and establishing verifiable success criteria, the guidelines ensure that refactoring and writing tasks remain focused and accurate. This resource serves as a practical implementation of best practices for developers using LLM-based tools to maintain high code quality and logic consistency.
Use Cases
Install Notes
# Review source first
open https://github.com/mxyhi/ok-skills/blob/main/karpathy-guidelines/SKILL.mdCopy or clone the skill folder into your agent skills directory after reviewing its instructions and scripts.
Security Notes
This skill consists of behavioral instructions and does not require specific system permissions or external dependencies. Users should review the guidelines within the mxyhi/ok-skills repository to ensure the logic aligns with their organization's internal coding standards and security policies before deployment.
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