Andrej Karpathy Skills

Use this skill to keep AI-assisted engineering grounded, simple, and verifiable. It is especially useful for backend, architecture, refactoring, debugging, migrations, and any task where an agent might overbuild, guess, or change unrelated code.

The core idea is simple: do not let the model drift. Make assumptions explicit, prefer minimal changes, touch only what the request requires, and verify with concrete checks before calling the work done.

When to Use

• Writing backend code, API changes, migrations, data access logic, or architecture-sensitive code.
• Refactoring code where accidental behavior changes are risky.
• Debugging a production issue or a failing test.
• Reviewing AI-generated code for overengineering, hidden assumptions, or missing verification.
• Implementing a user request that is ambiguous, cross-cutting, or easy to over-scope.
• Making changes in an unfamiliar codebase.
• Working under constraints such as dirty git state, existing style, generated files, or ownership boundaries.
• Producing a plan before code or a concise review after code.

Skip When