andrej-karpathy-skills is a single CLAUDE.md file meant to change how Claude Code behaves when it writes code. It is based on Andrej Karpathy's public observations about common mistakes of LLM coding tools, which the README links to. Karpathy is the inspiration, not the author: the repository is hosted under the multica-ai GitHub organisation (its install commands still point to the older forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills address, which redirects) and its README promotes Multica, the authors' platform for running coding agents.
The file boils down to four rules: think before coding (state assumptions and ask instead of guessing silently); simplicity first (the minimum code, no speculative features or extra abstractions); surgical changes (edit only what the request needs, and mention unrelated dead code rather than deleting it); and goal-driven execution (turn the task into checkable success criteria, such as a test written first, and loop until it passes). The repository also includes a Cursor project rule and a Claude Code plugin.
It is one of the most-starred projects on GitHub, at about 230,000 stars and 22,900 forks, and it gained about 4,500 stars this week on GitHub trending. The licence is MIT. To try it, add it as a Claude Code plugin with /plugin marketplace add forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills and /plugin install andrej-karpathy-skills@karpathy-skills, or drop the file into one project: curl -o CLAUDE.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills/main/CLAUDE.md.
Limits: the README says the rules favour caution over speed, should not be applied in full to trivial fixes, and should be merged with your own project instructions. It describes signs that it is working (smaller diffs, more clarifying questions) but shows no measured results. Developers Digest suggests using it as a menu of ideas rather than a template, notes that generic rules can clash with a real codebase, and links a Reddit discussion arguing the stars reflect Karpathy's name and easy copy-paste more than proven gains. The last code change it lists is from April 2026.
