Let AI Code for You — But Afraid It’ll Go Rogue? ponytail Adds Brakes

The contradiction: you love AI coding speed — and quietly panic: will it delete the wrong files? leak secrets? break the whole project? ‘Want it, fear losing control’ — every heavy AI user’s knot. ponytail exists for it: brakes for AI — it proposes, you approve, then it executes.

AI’s Supervisor

ponytail is an open tool supervising AI coding assistants — every operation AI wants (delete files, edit code, run commands) passes review tiers: safe ones pass, dangerous ones wait for your nod. Human-in-the-loop: AI proposes → you review → execute. Every step visible.

Why the Author Built It

DietrichGebert, a developer — motive from real scares: assistants grow autonomous, autonomous means ‘deciding on their own’ — and decisions can err. Better to gate beforehand than fight fires after — ‘brake before losing control’ is the whole philosophy.

Hands-Free or This?

Middle path: hands off daily, gate the dangerous — ‘peace’ and ‘speed’ both.

Trust Check

A supervisor must itself be trustworthy — it’s MIT open; every gating line inspectable. A black-box supervisor is scarier than none. You supervise AI; the community supervises it.

Where It’s Headed

More assistants, finer tiers — ‘brakes for AI’ as everyone’s default, like antivirus for browsing. Use now, be safer than 99% of AI users.

Install

npm install -g ponytail
ponytail init   # set your red lines: what to hold, what to pass
# wire ponytail as the middle layer for your AI assistant

Gotchas: over-strict rules spam confirmations — start with defaults; check assistant compatibility; it gates ‘operations,’ not ‘logic’ — wrong code still passes.

FAQ

• Q: Slows AI down? A: Safe ops feel nothing — only dangerous ones pause.
• Q: vs built-in confirmations? A: Unified, tiered, customizable — any assistant, your rules.
• Q: No security background? A: Fine — defaults are expert-configured.

‘Brakes-before-driving’ or ‘trust-AI-naked’ camp? Comment which — and your scariest AI moment.