karpathy-coding-discipline

# fetches the source and writes it to:
.claude/rules/karpathy-coding-discipline.md

What it is

THE FOUR THINGS — a four-clause behavioral constitution for any coding agent, distilled from Andrej Karpathy's working style. (1) Think Before Coding: state the plan and the assumptions first. (2) Simplicity First: the simplest solution that works wins; don't gold-plate. (3) Surgical Changes: touch only the files you own; never reformat or "improve" neighbors. (4) Goal-Driven Execution: every action moves toward the stated goal, and you verify the goal is met before declaring done.

When to use it

Make this the FIRST rule in any agent harness — it is the constitution that governs every other rule. Reach for it whenever an agent is over-engineering, sprawling across files it doesn't own, or shipping without verifying.

How to install / invoke

armory install karpathy-coding-discipline places the repository's own rules file, https://github.com/multica-ai/andrej-karpathy-skills/blob/main/CLAUDE.md, in your harness's rules folder (.claude/rules/ for Claude Code). Or paste the four clauses near the top of your CLAUDE.md (or AGENTS.md). Reference it from every worker mission so sub-agents inherit it. The four clauses are short enough to quote verbatim in a system prompt.

Notes

This is the behavior-norm layer, not a linter — it shapes how the agent decides, not what the code looks like. Pairs with socratic-thinking (debate before building) and test-before-build (verify the goal as a user).