I wrote the manual Karpathy said was missing for agentic AI

https://github.com/nicolasahar/morphic-programming

39•nick2837•2h ago

Comments

nick2837•2h ago

I've been building with CLI AI agents (Claude Code specifically) for several months and noticed some powerful patterns emerging that have 10x’d my productivity.

Stuff like …

1. Morphability - natural language as executable, morphable code 2. Abstraction - encapsulating tasks into reusable commands 3. Recursion - stacking abstractions for leverage 4. Internal Consistency - the immune system of your AI system 5. Reproducibility - crash-resilient by design 6. Morphic Complexity - knowing when you've over-engineered 7. End-to-End Autonomy - what your system can do without human intervention 8. Token Efficiency - maximizing useful work per token 9. Mutation & Exploration - controlled self-improvement

Link: https://github.com/nicolasahar/morphic-programming

its free and i dont need anything from you except genuine feedback

also included system design patterns, psychological tips, and example commands :)

PaulHoule•1h ago

You have source code for this kind of system?

Havoc•1h ago

Thanks for sharing

npalli•1h ago

LOL, this is the list to keep in your head for this so called "manual". Best of luck of those who will work through this. BTW, Karpathy made that comment in 2025 not 2024.

  Morphability - natural language as morphable code
  Abstraction - tasks become reusable commands
  Recursion - stack abstractions for leverage
  Internal Consistency - prevent system drift
  Reproducibility - crash-resilient design
  Morphic Complexity - recognize over-engineering
  E2E Autonomy - measure actual capabilities
  Token Efficiency - maximize work per token
  Mutation & Exploration - controlled self-improvement

jennyholzer3•1h ago

AI in 2026 is really all about morphability.

If you aren't using multiple agents, subagents, and autonomous MCP abstractions to construct a detailed morphological model of your codebase, you'll never appreciate the sublime bliss of man-machine union that the enlightened among us here have come to know.

aleph_minus_one•1h ago

> If you aren't using multiple agents, subagents, and autonomous MCP abstractions to construct a detailed morphological model of your codebase, you'll never appreciate the sublime bliss of man-machine union that the enlightened among us here have come to know.

Is this serious or satire?

jennyholzer3•1h ago

Tell me you don't use Claude Code without telling me you don't use Claude Code.

twodave•1h ago

No need to be dismissive.

a4isms•58m ago

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is utterly impossible to parody an AI hyper-enthusiast in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.

dsr_•54m ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

sho_hn•1h ago

Genuine Agent Zen is when your instructions .md contains but a single line, "Do!"

Everything else will be dated by Monday.

dsr_•56m ago

That is so January 1. Get with the program. Your approach is obsolete. You will fall behind in the global arms race. It's almost January 3, it's time for a new methodology!

Pro-tip: move to an earlier timezone so you can get the real edge on your competition.

stack_framer•1h ago

> Inspired by Andrej Karpathy's tweet[0] on Dec 26, 2024

The tweet was in 2025, not 2024.

[0] https://x.com/karpathy/status/2004607146781278521

reconnecting•1h ago

From the author: "A Few Disclaimers (1)

Yes, this manual was AI generated. However, the core ideas, first principles, and outline for this manual are all ..."

1. https://github.com/nicolasahar/morphic-programming/blob/main...

arduanika•1h ago

Okay, so the submitted title is a lie? "I wrote the manual..." Would you consider changing it to something more honest?

throwaway314155•1h ago

Oh come on.

arduanika•42m ago

Come on and what? We are dazzled by this cool new tech and so now precision in speech no longer matters?

jennyholzer3•35m ago

Human language is the new code; precision in speech is outdated and irrelevant

reconnecting•1h ago

It's not me who decides. I just pointed out that the irrelevant date is related to the AI generated nature of this text.

arduanika•41m ago

Ah. My bad, yelling at the messenger. But the actual "author", who might also be the submitter (nick = Nicola?), has some explaining to do. There's a lie in the submission title, and the same lie in the github readme intro.

Thanks for helping alert us all to the sloppiness and deceit. And thanks to all who flagged.

tedivm•1h ago

The person you are responded to isn't the author of the post.

arduanika•38m ago

Fair point, but neither is this lying "Nicola Sahar" character.

000ooo000•1h ago

>"Used AI"

>"Wrote this in a day"

>"So please forgive any imprecision or inaccuracies"

Um, no? You (TFA author) want people to read/review your slop that you banged together in a day and let the shit parts slide? If you want to namedrop some AI heavy hitter to boost your slop, at least have the decency to publish something you put real effort into.

sho_hn•1h ago

You are not talking to the author. The comment was a quote from TFA, written (or, well, prompted) by someone else.

MattDaEskimo•1h ago

English - or better put: human language - is not the "new code". Since the inception of programming a person could ask another to write code.

This manual is hallucinated nonsense.

The only interesting part is how people uneducated in computers and mathematics always seem to fall into the topic of recursion with AI

OutOfHere•1h ago

No. Just no. You wrote a manual for using AI for software development is all, limited to a specific approach.

You did not write a manual for applying agentic AI more broadly and generally, which is what it is about. You completely missed the mark.

_air•46m ago

It would be nice if there were a domain specific language that could help with the internal consistency problem

Software Error Will Force 325,000 Californians to Replace Real IDs

EmacsConf 2025 Notes

Tell HN: I shipped a script-based language filter and an onboarding tour

One line, one agent: LLM-native language NERD goes agent-first

Show HN: Wip – Watch and reload any process using pluggable hooks

Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet

Ask HN: Is there any way to lock apps on iPhone?

Liballocs: Meta-level run-time services for Unix processes

Seminole Warriors Fought the US Military to a Stalemate

Stewart Cheifet–creator, exec producer&host of Computer Chronicles, dies at 87

Show HN: A Bloomberg terminal for finding fresh powder (DuckDB WASM)

Everybody Gets a Wand

Building a rain predictor on a C64 with 1985's "XPER," expert system software

The most friendless place on Earth

Healthy 18-year-old welder nearly died of anthrax–the 9th such puzzling case

The Agentic Self: Parallels Between AI and Self-Improvement

GE Refrigerator with a built-in barcode scanner for grocery lists

How Dependabot Actually Works

Show

Manifesto for a Disinterested Artistic Self

The Rise of Computer Games, Part II: Digitizing Nerddom

India issues stern notice to X, flags Grok targeting women with obscene content

Residues: Time, Change and Uncertainty in Software Architecture [video]

Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable Display Laptop Review [video]

Steadfast Self-Hosting, Auf Deutsch

How to open the Maclock retro Macintosh clock without breaking it [video]

Certified Shovelware

Show HN: Runtm- open-source runtime and control plane for agent-built software

Why AI Agents Won't Just "Do Stuff" – Permissions Are the Ultimate Barrier

When AI recreates the female voice, it also rewrites who gets heard