# gstack by Garry Tan

14 Hacker News commenters recommended gstack by Garry Tan and 15 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a set of Claude Code skills and browser tooling that speeds up development and improves code quality, though critics say it is token-heavy and overhyped.

## Why people recommend it

- Faster, higher-quality development (4 comments): "Dramatically improved code quality and speed of development for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47356114)) "GStack is a brilliant setup for maximizing Claude Code's velocity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47369499)) "created 10x productivity gain for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48902607))

## What people warn about

- Hype and self-promotion (6 comments): "Pretty funny boasting about accelerated results, when his public contributions are only in two repositories" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509603)) "AIs suck up to you and constantly tell you your work is brilliant and of course it's revolutionary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47585861)) "I found the Garry Tan's gstack README to be too linkedin-ey" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47436454))
- Overkill, token-heavy, clutters context (3 comments): "the CEO plan mode in the repo is interesting (although very token heavy)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47418781)) "I find that its usually overkill for many things" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49429465)) "It just unnecessarily clutters the context, in EVERY single skill." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47418975))
- Produces low-quality, sloppy output (4 comments): "producing 'functional slop' that has little bearing on how anything else would be made" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815907)) "hundreds of thousands of the worst quality slop you can imagine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826632)) "a Winchester Mystery House constructed mostly from Markdown" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638795))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Superpowers](https://hackerapproved.com/p/superpowers.md): 138 recommend
- [Claude Skills](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-skills.md): 59 recommend
- [grill-me skill by Matt Pocock](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grill-me-skill.md): 39 recommend
- [Get Shit Done](https://hackerapproved.com/p/get-shit-done.md): 31 recommend
- [Matt Pocock's skills](https://hackerapproved.com/p/matt-pocock-s-skills.md): 27 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "gstack by Garry Tan", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gstack/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).