ponytail-debt

ponytail-debt — harvest ponytail: shortcuts into a ledger

Every deliberate ponytail shortcut is marked with a ponytail: comment naming its ceiling and upgrade path. This collects them into one ledger so a deferral can't quietly become permanent ("later means never").

When to fire

• "ponytail debt", "what did ponytail defer", "list the shortcuts", "ponytail ledger", "what did we mark to do later", or /ponytail-debt.

Scan

Grep the repo for comment markers, skipping node_modules, .git, and build output:

grep -rnE '(#|//) ?ponytail:' . (add other comment prefixes if your stack uses them)

Each hit is one ledger row. The comment prefix keeps prose that merely mentions the convention out of the ledger.

Output contract

One row per marker, grouped by file:

<file>:<line> — <what was simplified>. ceiling: <the limit named>. upgrade: <the trigger to revisit>.

The convention is ponytail: <ceiling>, <upgrade path>, so pull the ceiling and the trigger straight from the comment. Want an owner per row too? add git blame -L<line>,<line>.

Flag the rot risk: any ponytail: comment that names no upgrade path or trigger gets a no-trigger tag — those are the ones that silently rot.

End with <N> markers, <M> with no trigger. Nothing found: No ponytail: debt. Clean ledger.

Boundaries

Reads and reports only; changes nothing. To persist it, ask and it writes the ledger to a file (e.g. PONYTAIL-DEBT.md). One-shot. "stop ponytail-debt" / "normal mode" reverts.

See also

• skills/ponytail/SKILL.md — defines the ponytail: marker convention this harvests.
• skills/ponytail-audit/SKILL.md — finds NEW cuts; this one tracks the ones already marked.