I wrote the manual Karpathy said was missing for agentic AI

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

43•nick2837•1mo ago

Comments

nick2837•1mo 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•1mo ago

You have source code for this kind of system?

nick2837•4w ago

i'm working on it. but the fastest thing you can do is download the guide (markdown file) and have Claude Code review / incorporate it into its own Claude.MD

Havoc•1mo ago

Thanks for sharing

npalli•1mo 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•1mo 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•1mo 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?

a4isms•1mo 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_•1mo ago

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

sho_hn•1mo ago

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

Everything else will be dated by Monday.

dsr_•1mo 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•1mo 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•1mo 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•1mo ago

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

throwaway314155•1mo ago

Oh come on.

arduanika•1mo ago

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

jennyholzer3•1mo ago

Human language is the new code; precision in speech is outdated and irrelevant

arduanika•1mo ago

You almost had me there, I'll admit, but then I looked at your (short, new) comment history for a Poe's Law check. A much-needed perspective around here! Keep it up, and good luck staying on the right side of the site guidelines -- your shtick is close to the edge, but very refreshing if done well.

reconnecting•1mo 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•1mo 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.

nick2837•4w ago

i genuinely wrote the thing myself. i wrote it in notion and had lots of spelling/grammar mistakes and no formatting, so i asked claude code to put it into a markdown file and polish the writing. im not going to sit here and do this myself bc this is not my full time job and im just trying to get my ideas out into the world

tedivm•1mo ago

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

arduanika•1mo ago

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

nick2837•4w ago

what am i lying about exactly?

000ooo000•1mo 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•1mo ago

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

000ooo000•1mo ago

I know, that's why I'm quoting the author and not the commenter, and why I said "you (TFA author)"

nick2837•4w ago

i genuinely wrote this in a day. ive been in ai for 9 years, well before chatgpt came out. i used Claude Code to turn it from my notion draft (spelling mistakes, no formatting, etc) into a well-formatted markdown file. you don't need to believe me, move on with your life. the guide is free and is meant to genuinely help someone use AI in a better way

nick2837•4w ago

i wrote the manual on notion and asked it to put it in a markdown file and fix my spelling and grammar. if you read the disclaimer full, i specifically state i did not use it for brainstorming or adding net new ideas

nick2837•4w ago

thanks i fixed this!

MattDaEskimo•1mo 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

nick2837•4w ago

you can continue to believe in the old paradigm, or accept reality for what it is.

someone who abstracts themselves up will be able to move and ship 100x faster than you in the next 12 months.

OutOfHere•1mo 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.

nick2837•4w ago

right at the top of Part 2: "The examples I give are going to be software engineering/coding specific, but they can be applied to any digital task."

you can genuinely use these principles for anything you want to do on your computer. I don't just use Claude Code for programming.

_air•1mo ago

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

nick2837•4w ago

i agree. it's still very early with AI programming in general, so this might evolve in the next few years

johnnyfived•1mo ago

Pls consider donating this to the Linux foundation and making tons of announcements about it.

Tag them in tweets too

nick2837•4w ago

Thanks, will do that!

mjmas•1mo ago

How did you get a wrong Twitter link? And the updated note has two off-by-one errors.

https://github.com/nicolasahar/morphic-programming/commit/c3...

nick2837•4w ago

thanks i fixed both!

Tiny C Compiler

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

Speed up responses with fast mode

Show HN: LocalGPT – A local-first AI assistant in Rust with persistent memory

Brookhaven Lab's RHIC concludes 25-year run with final collisions

Software factories and the agentic moment

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly

FDA intends to take action against non-FDA-approved GLP-1 drugs

First Proof

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

Show HN: I saw this cool navigation reveal, so I made a simple HTML+CSS version

Show HN: A luma dependent chroma compression algorithm (image compression)

Show HN: Craftplan – Elixir-based micro-ERP for small-scale manufacturers

Eigen: Building a Workspace

Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

Microsoft account bugs locked me out of Notepad – Are thin clients ruining PCs?

The F Word

I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

Selection rather than prediction

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

Where did all the starships go?

Learning from context is harder than we thought

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

A Fresh Look at IBM 3270 Information Display System

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

Tiny C Compiler

SectorC: A C Compiler in 512 bytes

Speed up responses with fast mode

Show HN: LocalGPT – A local-first AI assistant in Rust with persistent memory

Brookhaven Lab's RHIC concludes 25-year run with final collisions

Software factories and the agentic moment

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly

FDA intends to take action against non-FDA-approved GLP-1 drugs

First Proof

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

Show HN: I saw this cool navigation reveal, so I made a simple HTML+CSS version

Show HN: A luma dependent chroma compression algorithm (image compression)

Show HN: Craftplan – Elixir-based micro-ERP for small-scale manufacturers

Eigen: Building a Workspace

Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

Microsoft account bugs locked me out of Notepad – Are thin clients ruining PCs?

The F Word

I write games in C (yes, C) (2016)

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

Selection rather than prediction

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

Where did all the starships go?

Learning from context is harder than we thought

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

A Fresh Look at IBM 3270 Information Display System

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

I wrote the manual Karpathy said was missing for agentic AI

Comments