Build exactly what the current problem requires.

Install - 10 seconds, no dependencies

No hooks, no Node, no build step. Just copy one file.

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alvindemesadev/boring-engineering/main/SKILL.md
mkdir -p .claude/skills/boring-engineering && cp SKILL.md .claude/skills/boring-engineering/

Same path for .cursor/skills, .opencode/skills, .codex/skills - see all 40+

A quick example - same result, less to maintain

You say "send an email on signup." Without boring, the agent anticipates a future with many providers. With boring, it checks: is that futures real? No. So it stays direct.

export async function sendSignupEmail(user) {
  await mailer.send({ to: user.email,
    subject: 'Welcome',
    html: welcomeTemplate(user) });
}

How it works

Four checks. Stops at the first no. ~100 tokens when idle, full check only on task.

Final check: Can this be simpler? Did I add anything not asked for? If yes, revise.

Benchmark - v1.1 · August 2026

90 single-shot runs (6 coding tasks × 3 arms × 5 tries) on one model. Same prompts every time - the only difference is which ruleset the agent carried. "Works" = generated code executed against per-task tests and passed. v1.1 adds an active built-in check, compact formatting, and modern idioms — validated on the same harness.

Read it in plain words: both skills make the agent write less code. Ponytail writes the tiniest code but broke 1 in 5 times. boring-engineering v1.1 wrote even less (4 median lines vs 4.5) and never broke (30/30). No skill at all overbuilt and got it wrong half the time. The gap closed because v1.1 learned to reach for built-ins.

Honest fine print: single-shot generations, not full agent sessions · n=5 per cell, one model family · task suite authored by boring-engineering's author, so treat ponytail's side as an independent snapshot rather than a verdict · raw data and harness are in the repo (/benchmarks).