State-space model with O(n) complexity vs Transformers' O(n²). 5× faster inference, million-token sequences, no KV cache. Selective SSM with hardware-aware design. Mamba-1 (d_state=16) and Mamba-2 (d_state=128, multi-head). Models 130M-2.8B on HuggingFace.
nanogpt
nanogpt is an open-source productivity skill for Claude Code and compatible agents, published by Orchestra-Research. Its author describes it as: “Educational GPT implementation in ~300 lines. Reproduces GPT-2 (124M) on OpenWebText. Clean, hackable code for learning transformers. By Andrej Karpathy. Perfect for understanding GPT architecture from scratch. Train…”. The project has 12k stars on GitHub and is available under the MIT license. Add it to your setup with `/plugin marketplace add Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs`.
What nanogpt does
nanoGPT is a simplified GPT implementation designed for learning and experimentation.
Installation
Add nanogpt to your agent with:
/plugin marketplace add Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLsAlways review a skill's source before installing it. This command comes from the skill's public repository; the linked repo is the source of truth for exact setup steps.
What's inside
The SKILL.md for nanogpt is organised into these sections:
- Quick start
- Common workflows
- Workflow 1: Character-level Shakespeare
- Workflow 2: Reproduce GPT-2 (124M)
- Workflow 3: Fine-tune pretrained GPT-2
- Workflow 4: Custom dataset
- When to use vs alternatives
- Common issues
- Advanced topics
- Hardware requirements
- Resources
When to use it
Reach for nanogpt when you want productivity help from your agent without writing the same instructions every session. Load the skill and the agent picks it up automatically for relevant tasks.
Strengths
- Clear MIT license — safe to read and adapt
- Ships in Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs, an established project with 11,807 GitHub stars
- Actively maintained (recent commits)
Topics
Frequently asked questions
- What does nanogpt do?
- Educational GPT implementation in ~300 lines. Reproduces GPT-2 (124M) on OpenWebText. Clean, hackable code for learning transformers. By Andrej Karpathy. Perfect for understanding GPT architecture from scratch. Train on Shakespeare (CPU) or OpenWebText (multi-GPU).
- How do I install nanogpt?
- Run /plugin marketplace add Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs in your agent, then reload your skills. Review the source at https://github.com/Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs before installing.
- Is nanogpt free to use?
- Yes. nanogpt is free and open source under the MIT license, so you can read, run, and adapt it within that license's terms.
- Where does nanogpt come from?
- nanogpt ships inside Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs, a repository that contains 41 catalogued skills in total. The repository's 11,807 GitHub stars apply to that whole collection, not to this skill on its own.
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