Karpathy guidelines — behavioral rules against common LLM coding mistakes
Think before coding, simplicity first, surgical changes, goal-driven execution — derived from Andrej Karpathy's observations on LLM coding pitfalls
- What
- Think before coding, simplicity first, surgical changes, goal-driven execution — derived from Andrej Karpathy's observations on LLM coding pitfalls
- Cost
- Free
- Needs
- nothing to install — the skill is a set of behavioral guidelines your agent applies when writing, reviewing or refactoring code
- Install
- Copy the installer prompt below into your Muse — your agent does the rest.
Curated by Skill Harbor — @multica-ai's behavioral guidelines for agents, derived from Andrej Karpathy's observations on how LLM-written code goes wrong. Four rules: think before coding (state assumptions explicitly, surface tradeoffs, push back when a simpler approach exists, ask instead of hiding confusion), simplicity first (minimum code that solves the problem — no speculative features, single-use abstractions, unrequested configurability, or impossible-scenario error handling; "if you write 200 lines and it could be 50, rewrite it"), surgical changes (touch only what the request requires, match existing style, mention unrelated dead code instead of deleting it, clean up only the orphans your own changes created), and goal-driven execution (transform tasks into verifiable success criteria and loop until verified — "add validation" becomes "write tests for invalid inputs, then make them pass"). MIT-licensed per the skill's frontmatter (note: the repo manifest declares no license — see caveat). Honest caveats: the guidelines bias toward caution over speed, so use judgment on trivial tasks; the tradeoff list is explicitly about coding agents, not a general writing style; license stated as MIT in the SKILL.md frontmatter while the repository manifest shows none — confirm before redistributing. Skill Harbor never reviews the code, review it yourself before use. Discovered via skills.sh.
Version:
Install
Prerequisites: nothing to install — the skill is a set of behavioral guidelines your agent applies when writing, reviewing or refactoring code Install "Karpathy guidelines — behavioral rules against common LLM coding mistakes" for me. It gives my agent @multica-ai's guidelines derived from Andrej Karpathy's LLM coding pitfalls: think before coding (state assumptions, surface tradeoffs, ask), simplicity first (minimum code, no speculation), surgical changes (minimal diffs, match style), goal-driven execution (verifiable success criteria, loop until verified). MIT-licensed per the SKILL.md frontmatter (repository manifest declares no license — confirm before redistributing). Repository: https://github.com/multica-ai/andrej-karpathy-skills/blob/main/skills/karpathy-guidelines/SKILL.md 1. Fetch the SKILL.md file (and any helper files) from the repository path into a temporary folder and summarize what it does in one or two sentences. 2. Safety check: review the SKILL.md and scripts for anything suspicious (unexpected network calls, shell commands, credential harvesting). This repo should contain zero secrets in code, credentials only via the secure vault, allowed hosts declared in the SKILL.md. Verify that holds here; STOP on any red flag and tell me. 3. Install it as a skill: copy SKILL.md and its helper files into the agent's skills directory, in a folder named "karpathy-guidelines". 4. Verify with no network calls: frontmatter valid, files in place. 5. Report what was installed, where, and what I still need to do myself (e.g. nothing — they are guidelines; tell the agent to apply them on its next coding task). GitHub is optional: if I have a GitHub account or the gh CLI, you may use it; otherwise public access is fine. Never require it unless it's in the prerequisites above. Rules: don't touch anything outside the temp folder and the install target. If anything looks off, stop and ask me.
Questions
How do I install a build?
Every product page includes a copy-paste install prompt. Paste it into your Muse and it sets the build up for you — no manual configuration.
Where does my money go?
Straight to the seller. Skill Harbor never processes payments: checkout happens on the seller’s own page, usually Stripe.
What does the ✓ next to a creator’s name mean?
It means we confirmed the identity of the person behind the listing. It says nothing about the code itself — always check a build before installing it.