DietrichGebert/ponytail v4.8.0

v4.8.0: comprehension first, now with an MCP server

on GitHub

He read the whole thing first, then wrote less.

This release sharpens the core ruleset (comprehension before laziness, reuse before rewriting), ships an MCP server for the rules, adds a measured-impact scoreboard, and lands a security bump. Two more agents join the family.

✨ Features

• ponytail-mcp: an MCP server that serves the ruleset to any MCP-capable agent (#91)
• /ponytail-gain: measured-impact scoreboard — less code, less cost, more speed from the benchmark medians (#108)
• Antigravity support via .agents/rules/ponytail.md (#119)
• CodeWhale support — native AGENTS.md reader, zero setup (#124)
• argument-hint on the ponytail skill (#85)

🔒 Security

• Bump @modelcontextprotocol/sdk to ^1.26.0 (CVE-2026-25536) (#208)

🛠 Fixes

• Comprehension-first guard + reuse rung — climb the ladder only after understanding the problem; reuse what already lives in the repo before rewriting it (#245, #217)
• Don't embed shell-unsafe install paths in the statusline setup nudge (#224)
• Portable Python command in robustness-audit.js (Windows) (#209)
• Don't write output on SessionStart for Copilot (#168)
• Register skills dir via config hook so OpenCode discovers ponytail skills (#138)
• Avoid Gemini loading Claude hook events (#139)
• Statusline reads the flag from CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, not just ~/.claude (#154)
• Guard final writeHookOutput against stdout EPIPE in ponytail-activate (#149)
• Strip UTF-8 BOM before parsing settings.json in ponytail-activate (#148)
• Resolve test failure on Node.js < 20.11.0 (#157)
• Only deactivate on a standalone "stop ponytail" / "normal mode" (#162)
• Pin all four safety carve-outs in the rule-drift canary (#114)

📊 Benchmarks

• Agentic LOC + safety benchmark against a fair agentic baseline (#126, #158)
• Completeness judge so LOC wins can't hide under-delivery (#171)
• critic-email task reproducing the critique's own example (#173)

📚 Docs & examples

• Spanish (LATAM) README translation (#110)
• 6 new over-engineering survivors + platform-native guide (#109)
• Agentic benchmark chart and corrected cost claim (42–75%, 30-rep) in the README (#160, #129)

Full changelog: v4.7.0...v4.8.0