dev loop

Most coding tasks suffer from scope creep and over-engineered abstractions that slow down the build. This skill enforces a strict plan-first development loop designed to minimize code surface area and eliminate speculative features before they reach production. ## What it does - **Plan validation** ensures no code is written until a minimal implementation strategy is approved. - **Scope reduction** applies the ponytail ladder to prioritize standard libraries and existing features over new dependencies. - **Automated refinement** iterates on drafts to shrink the plan and flag deliberate technical shortcuts. - **Strict review** runs a post-build audit to identify and remove dead flexibility or reinvented logic. - **Debt tracking** maintains a `PONYTAIL-DEBT.md` file to document accepted trade-offs and upgrade paths. ## How it works 1. **Define and Draft**: Restate the requirement and present a plan with a specific YAGNI (You Ain't Gonna Need It) list. 2. **Build and Check**: Implement the approved plan and create a single, framework-free assertion to verify logic. 3. **Review and Cut**: Run a diff-based review to strip out unneeded complexity or extra files. 4. **Final Audit**: For multi-file changes, perform a scope-wide audit to simplify the module before delivery. ## Frameworks & tools This skill is framework-agnostic and works with any language. It integrates with supplementary `ponytail`, `ponytail-review`, and `ponytail-audit` skills for specialized code analysis. ## Why this beats prompting it yourself Manual prompts often lead to agents hallucinating "best practices" that add unnecessary boilerplate. This skill forces the agent into a rigid gated process where the default action is to delete code rather than add it. ## Use cases - Refactoring a messy module by stripping it down to its core logic. - Implementing new features without introducing external library bloat. - Rapid prototyping where technical debt must be explicitly tracked. - Enforcing minimalist coding standards across a shared repository. ## Known limitations The loop allows a maximum of three review rounds to prevent infinite optimization cycles. It requires the user to manually approve the plan before Phase 3 can begin.