throwaway-scriptslisted

# Throwaway scripts Some work is mechanical and scales with N: rename 200 files, pull a field out of 50 JSON blobs, rewrite every import path, generate a table from a list. Doing that through one tool call per item is slow and burns a lot of tokens for something a five-line script would finish in one run. When the task is a loop, write the loop. The rule: if a job is repetitive, deterministic, and scales with N, prefer a short script over N manual steps. Write it just in time, run it, and remove it when done. ## When to script - The same operation repeats over many files, rows, or items. - The work is mechanical: no per-item judgment, just a transform or a count. - A script expresses it more cheaply than the equivalent pile of tool calls. - You need a deterministic, repeatable result (a sweep you can rerun and trust). ## When not to - A one-off small edit. Just make the edit. - A task that needs human judgment on each item. - Something a dedicated tool already does cleanly (a search, a single find-and-replace). Do not script what the right tool handles in one call. This is `use-your-skills` and the right-tool judgment applied to scripting. ## Pick a runtime that exists Do not assume. Check what the system actually has, then choose, just in time: - JavaScript or TypeScript: `bun` if present (fast, no install), otherwise `node`. - `python` for data wrangling and text. - `powershell` on Windows, `bash` on Unix, for filesystem and glue work. Match the language to th