Run Karpathy's 4-principle review on staged changes or the last commit. Checks complexity, diff noise, hidden assumptions, and goal verification. Usage /karpathy-check [--last-commit]
Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.
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---
name: karpathy-check
description: Run Karpathy's 4-principle review on staged changes or the last commit. Checks complexity, diff noise, hidden assumptions, and goal verification. Usage /karpathy-check [--last-commit]
---
# /karpathy-check
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`
