/karpathy-check

Slash Command Source

Review your staged changes (or last commit) against Karpathy's 4 coding principles.

Usage

/karpathy-check                 # review staged changes
/karpathy-check --last-commit   # review the most recent commit

What it runs

1. Principle #2 (Simplicity): scripts/complexity_checker.py on all changed files — detects over-engineering, premature abstractions, deep nesting, long functions
2. Principle #3 (Surgical): scripts/diff_surgeon.py on the diff — detects comment-only changes, whitespace noise, style drift, drive-by refactors
3. Principles #1 + #4 (Think + Goals): The karpathy-reviewer agent reads the diff and applies human-judgment checks — hidden assumptions, missing verification

Output

A structured report with per-principle verdicts and specific line-level fix recommendations.

When to run

• Before committing (catches noise and overcomplication early)
• After completing a feature (sanity check before PR)
• When you suspect the LLM overcoded something

Sub-agent

Dispatches the karpathy-reviewer agent. See agents/karpathy-reviewer.md.

Scripts

• engineering/karpathy-coder/scripts/complexity_checker.py
• engineering/karpathy-coder/scripts/diff_surgeon.py
• engineering/karpathy-coder/scripts/assumption_linter.py
• engineering/karpathy-coder/scripts/goal_verifier.py

Skill Reference

→ engineering/karpathy-coder/SKILL.md