Head to head
karpathy-skills vs gstack
karpathy-skills and gstack solve the same job (Planning & reasoning), so this is a pick-one decision. karpathy-skills is our default here: Cheapest quality win on the entire list. One file, no install, works alongside everything else. 'Surgical Changes' alone stops the drive-by refactors that break a working layout while fixing something unrelated.
Quick read
- Editor's pick: karpathy-skills.
| Field | karpathy-skillsgithub.com Not yet swept | gstackgithub.com Not yet swept |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A ~65-line CLAUDE.md built around four LLM coding failure modes Karpathy identified. Adds no tools — it changes how the agent decides: surface assumptions before coding, refuse speculative abstraction, keep diffs scoped, define a verifiable stopping condition. ~203k stars. | Garry Tan's skill bundle that turns Claude Code into a simulated engineering org — 23 agent roles (CEO, designer, engineer, QA lead) as slash commands, structured as Think → Plan → Build → Review → Test → Ship → Reflect. Includes a bundled browser for real testing and persistent cross-session knowledge. ~128k stars. |
| Category | Planning & reasoning | Planning & reasoning |
| Cost tier | free | free |
| Pricing | Free | Free · MIT |
| Why builders pick it | Cheapest quality win on the entire list. One file, no install, works alongside everything else. 'Surgical Changes' alone stops the drive-by refactors that break a working layout while fixing something unrelated. | Heavier than you probably need for a content site site, but the design review and QA gates are the useful part — work passes through review before shipping instead of being one-shot generated. |
| Watch out for | not logged | not logged |
| How to wire it up | curl -o CLAUDE.md .../main/CLAUDE.md | git clone ... ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup |
| Editor's pick | Yes | No |
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