Ponytail is no longer a copy of six skills under .agents/skills. The project's .claude/settings.json declares the upstream ponytail marketplace with auto-update and enables ponytail@ponytail, so Claude Code loads the always-on plugin once a contributor trusts the folder and follows upstream releases. AGENTS.md lists the upstream install commands for Codex, Cursor and other agents, and says when to switch to /poteto-mode instead.
The template ships no verification skill. The README's "Using this template" steps now tell a new app to run /create-verification-skill once its first features exist, then /maintain-verification-skill on the team's cadence, and where the generated verify-<app> skill belongs.
Sources: official plugin, verification skill step.