karpathy-task-routinglisted

# Karpathy Task Routing Karpathy: "Software 2.0 easily automates what you can verify" (karpathy.bearblog.dev/verifiability, 17 Nov 2025). Set autonomy per task from two questions: can I verify the output cheaply, and is this on-distribution or novel? The human is the bottleneck of the generation-verification loop, so task size scales to verification bandwidth, not generation bandwidth. ## Decision procedure 1. **Verifiability test.** Is there an objective, machine-checkable success signal — test, metric, diff, command output? If not, restructure the task until there is one, or do not delegate: judgment and taste stay human. Grant full autonomy only where the check is automatic — give objective, metric, and boundaries, then leave the inner loop. 2. **Distribution test.** Boilerplate and internet-common patterns: delegate wholesale. Novel, dense, or unconventional code: hand-write with autocomplete, or document every deviation from convention in context before delegating. On nanochat, Karpathy reported agents were "net unhelpful" and gave the reason that the repo was possibly too far off the data distribution (nanochat HN thread, Oct 2025). Separately, on ordinary repos he reports bloated abstractions, dead code left behind, and edits to code orthogonal to the task (X status/2015883857489522876, 26 Jan 2026, agent-coding notes). 3. **Set the slider, do not max it.** Pick a rung from the slider below and name it before starting. 4. **Granularity.** Delegate at macro level — i