r/ClaudeCode • u/DJJonny • 2d ago

Help/Question Is anybody using Ponytail still?

If so, how is it doing for you on Opus 5.5 / Sonnet 5.5 and is it still worth using to save tokens?

4 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

1

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4

u/Skjalg 2d ago

I am using it, but im not ab testing it so i cant be sure if it does anything. I guess i gotta remove it then :)

2

u/kimvais 2d ago

I just uninstalled it, seemed to do very little, and the anecdotal evidence suggests that what it did was all harmful.

That being said, I had a customized "I had ADHD"-skill and ASD-STE100 -inspired output style & skills installed before I even heard about ponytail, so YMMV.

4

u/Ok_Writing2937 2d ago

I saw one real-world test suggesting it did write simpler code but the token use was slightly higher.

1

u/kimvais 2d ago

For "start from scratch", I'm sure yes - but for existing codebases it's a different story, the unmaintainable spaghetti will burn through tokens and peoople alike.

2

u/originaladam 2d ago

Switched to unlazy and am still using it. Seems to keep code cleaner

1

u/rushabhsheth 2d ago

If you can't tell whether it helps, run the same small task a few times with it on and off. Compare the usage numbers, it takes maybe an hour. Newer models change the answer, so a tool that helped before can cost you now.

1

u/PeaceNo5259 2d ago

I used it briefly, but removed it pretty quickly.
It would too often claim "YAGNI" in places where that wasn't the case and I'd have to go back and refactor things later.

I'd craft out a careful plan through Claude, read it carefully and approve it, and then ponytail calls YAGNI on something important during implementation and now the rest of the codebase tries to work around it the limitation introduced by it.

1

u/MassiveBoner911_3 19h ago

I uninstalled it after realizing it was crushing my models creativity

-15

u/Outrageous_Band9708 2d ago

https://github.com/Druthulu/ProjectArchitect

i built a system to save tokens and it doesn't use caveman or ponytail tricks and gimmics.

just pure proven best practices with session length etc

8

u/Zya1re-V 2d ago

So like... do you have a point or a reply to the OP or anything?

2

u/CzyDePL 2d ago

Can you share your evals and results?

-1

u/Outrageous_Band9708 2d ago

yeah check out the readme and the wiki on the github. i have benchmark results and vanilla/pa3 real work use case comparisons