Four Karpathy Rules for Coding Agents

Every rule ships with a test you can apply on the spot. State your assumptions before coding, and when a request reads two ways, put both on the table instead of picking one silently. One question cuts abstractions: would a senior engineer call this overcomplicated? Another stops drive-by refactors: does every changed line trace back to what you asked for? Imperatives become verifiable goals — add validation turns into write tests for invalid inputs, then make them pass. It favours caution over speed by design.