Run Karpathy's 4-principle review on staged changes or the last commit. Checks complexity, diff noise, hidden assumptions, and goal verification. Slash command for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI.
Copy the command definition below into:
~/.claude/commands/karpathy-check-alirezarezvani-3.md---
title: "/karpathy-check — Slash Command for AI Coding Agents"
description: "Run Karpathy's 4-principle review on staged changes or the last commit. Checks complexity, diff noise, hidden assumptions, and goal verification. Slash command for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI."
---
# /karpathy-check
<div class="page-meta" markdown>
<span class="meta-badge">:material-console: Slash Command</span>
<span class="meta-badge">:material-github: <a href="https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills/tree/main/commands/karpathy-check.md">Source</a></span>
</div>
<!-- canonical copy: engineering/karpathy-coder/commands/karpathy-check.md — keep in sync (root copy uses repo-root-relative script paths) -->
# /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):** `engineering/karpathy-coder/skills/karpathy-coder/scripts/complexity_checker.py` on all changed files — detects over-engineering, premature abstractions, deep nesting, long functions
2. **Principle #3 (Surgical):** `engineering/karpathy-coder/skills/karpathy-coder/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/skills/karpathy-coder/scripts/complexity_checker.py`
- `engineering/karpathy-coder/skills/karpathy-coder/scripts/diff_surgeon.py`
- `engineering/karpathy-coder/skills/karpathy-coder/scripts/assumption_linter.py`
- `engineering/karpathy-coder/skills/karpathy-coder/scripts/goal_verifier.py`
## Skill Reference
→ `engineering/karpathy-coder/skills/karpathy-coder/SKILL.md`