How to View the Ponytail Benchmark Impact Scoreboard Using `/ponytail-gain`

To view Ponytail's benchmark impact scoreboard, type /ponytail-gain in your chat interface—this displays pre-computed median savings across five typical workloads and three Claude models without analyzing your current repository.

The /ponytail-gain command is one of six built-in Ponytail skills in the DietrichGebert/ponytail repository. Unlike repo-specific diagnostics, this command serves a static scoreboard showing aggregate performance data collected from Ponytail's standardized benchmark suite.

What /ponytail-gain Displays

The scoreboard presents median results from five representative programming tasks:

• Email validator
• Debounce function
• CSV sum utility
• Countdown timer
• Rate limiter

These benchmarks ran against three Anthropic models: Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus.

The output format renders as an ASCII bar chart comparing no-skill (baseline) versus ponytail (optimized) approaches:

pony tail gain                     benchmark median · 5 tasks · 3 models

Lines of code   no‑skill  ████████████████████  100%
                ponytail  ██▌·················    6–20%   ▼ 80–94%
Cost            no‑skill  ████████████████████  100%
                ponytail  █████▌··············   23–53%  ▼ 47–77%
Speed           ponytail  ▸ 3–6× faster

These figures represent aggregate medians, not predictions for your specific codebase. For repository-specific analysis, use /ponytail-debt or /ponytail-audit instead.

Technical Architecture

The /ponytail-gain command flows through four coordinated components:

Component	File Path	Purpose
Skill definition	skills/ponytail-gain/SKILL.md	Markdown file containing scoreboard content and ASCII rendering (lines 29-34)
Command metadata	commands/ponytail-gain.toml	TOML configuration with one-shot LLM prompt
Command registration	pi-extension/index.js (lines 59-62)	JavaScript bridge registering the slash command
Plugin manifest	plugin.yaml (line 13)	Skill directory declaration for host discovery

Execution Flow

1. User types /ponytail-gain (or synonym "ponytail gain")
2. Hermes/Qoder host receives the slash command
3. pi-extension handler invokes sendAlias("/skill:ponytail-gain", "", ctx)
4. Skill engine loads SKILL.md and returns the static scoreboard

Because the data is pre-computed and stored in SKILL.md, the response requires no repository analysis, ensuring sub-second, side-effect-free operation.

Usage Examples

Chat Interface Invocation

User: /ponytail-gain
Bot:  ponytail gain ... (ASCII scoreboard rendered)

Programmatic API Call

// Register command (already done in pi-extension/index.js)
pi.registerCommand("ponytail-gain", {
  description: "Run /skill:ponytail-gain",
  handler: (_args, ctx) => sendAlias("/skill:ponytail-gain", "", ctx),
});

// Execute programmatically
await pi.runCommand("ponytail-gain", {}, context);

Custom Alias Creation

Add shorthand triggers in pi-extension/index.js:

pi.aliasCommand("pgain", "ponytail-gain");   // Now "/pgain" works identically

Key Files Reference

• skills/ponytail-gain/SKILL.md — Complete skill description and static scoreboard markup
• commands/ponytail-gain.toml — LLM one-shot prompt preventing mode changes
• pi-extension/index.js — Command registration and alias handling
• plugin.yaml — Skill discovery metadata
• README.md (around line 316) — End-user quick reference

Summary

• /ponytail-gain displays pre-computed benchmark medians, not repo-specific data
• The scoreboard covers 5 tasks × 3 models with metrics for code volume, cost, and speed
• Response time is near-instant because no repository analysis occurs
• For actual codebase measurements, use /ponytail-debt or /ponytail-audit instead

Frequently Asked Questions

Does /ponytail-gain analyze my current codebase?

No. The command only renders static data from skills/ponytail-gain/SKILL.md. It never reads your repository files. For actual analysis of your code, use /ponytail-debt or /ponytail-audit.

Where do the benchmark numbers come from?

The medians originate from Ponytail's standardized benchmark suite in the benchmarks/ folder, as documented in the repository README. These runs tested consistent prompts across Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus models.

Can I customize which models or tasks appear in the scoreboard?

Not without modifying the skill definition. The scoreboard is hardcoded in SKILL.md lines 29-34. To create variant views, you would need to fork the skill or build a custom /ponytail-gain variant.

Why is /ponytail-gain faster than /ponytail-debt?

/ponytail-gain serves cached markdown content directly from SKILL.md. /ponytail-debt performs live repository analysis, token counting, and LLM inference—operations that require significantly more processing time.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "instagit@latest"]
    }
  }
}