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.
Related Skills
MCP Builder
anthropics/skills
Guide for creating high-quality MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers that enable LLMs to interact with external services through well-designed tools. Use when building MCP servers to integrate external APIs or services, whether in Python (FastMCP) or Node/TypeScript (MCP SDK).
Claude API
anthropics/skills
Reference for the Claude API / Anthropic SDK — model ids, pricing, params, streaming, tool use, MCP, agents, caching, token counting, model migration. TRIGGER — read BEFORE opening the target file; don't skip because it "looks like a one-liner" — whenever: the prompt names Claude/Anthropic in any form (Claude, Anthr...
Skill Creator
anthropics/skills
Create new skills, modify and improve existing skills, and measure skill performance. Use when users want to create a skill from scratch, edit, or optimize an existing skill, run evals to test a skill, benchmark skill performance with variance analysis, or optimize a skill's description for better triggering accuracy.
Shipping And Launch
addyosmani/agent-skills
Prepares production launches. Use when preparing to deploy to production, or when asking what needs to be in place before shipping. Use when you need a pre-launch checklist, when setting up monitoring, when planning a staged rollout, or when you need a rollback strategy.
Deprecation And Migration
addyosmani/agent-skills
Manages deprecation and migration. Use when removing old systems, APIs, or features. Use when migrating users from one implementation to another. Use when migrating a database schema in production, such as renaming or dropping a column without downtime (expand/contract). Use when deciding whether to maintain or suns...
Debugging And Error Recovery
addyosmani/agent-skills
Guides systematic root-cause debugging. Use when tests fail, builds break, something that worked yesterday broke, behavior doesn't match expectations, or you encounter any unexpected error. Use when you need to figure out what broke and why — a systematic approach to finding and fixing the root cause rather than gue...