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.
Profile →npx skills add 0xwilliamortiz/andrej-karpathy-skills --skill karpathy-guidelines --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Karpathy Guidelines Behavioral guidelines to reduce common LLM coding mistakes, derived from [Andrej Karpathy's observations](https://x.com/karpathy/status/2015883857489522876) on LLM coding pitfalls. **Tradeoff:** These guidelines bias toward caution over speed. For trivial tasks, use judgment. ## 1. Think Before Coding **Don't assume. Don't hide confusion. Surface tradeoffs.** Before implement
What does the karpathy-guidelines skill do?
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.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add 0xwilliamortiz/andrej-karpathy-skills --skill karpathy-guidelines --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From 0xwilliamortiz/andrej-karpathy-skills, a repository with 305 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.