caveman

why use many token when few do trick

Before/After • Install • What You Get • Benchmarks • Full install guide

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A Claude Code skill/plugin (also Codex, Gemini, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, Copilot, 30+ more) that makes agent talk like caveman — cuts ~50–65% of output tokens, measured (65% average vs default verbose replies, ~50% median vs a plain "answer concisely" baseline — real Claude API token counts, see Benchmarks), keeps full technical accuracy. Brain still big. Mouth small.

Honest number warning: caveman shrink output tokens only. Input tokens untouched by skill — whole-session savings smaller than the output number, and on terse tasks can be negative. Full truth: docs/HONEST-NUMBERS.md.

Before / After

🗣️ Normal Claude (69 tokens) "The reason your React component is re-rendering is likely because you're creating a new object reference on each render cycle. When you pass an inline object as a prop, React's shallow comparison sees it as a different object every time, which triggers a re-render. I'd recommend using useMemo to memoize the object."	Caveman Claude (19 tokens) "New object ref each render. Inline object prop = new ref = re-render. Wrap in useMemo."
🗣️ Normal Claude "Sure! I'd be happy to help you with that. The issue you're experiencing is most likely caused by your authentication middleware not properly validating the token expiry. Let me take a look and suggest a fix."	Caveman Claude "Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check use < not <=. Fix:"

Same fix. Half the word — sometimes way less. Brain still big.

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│  OUTPUT TOKENS SAVED   █████  50-65% │
│  INPUT TOKENS SAVED    ─          0% │
│  TECHNICAL ACCURACY    ████████ 100% │
│  VIBES                 ████████  OOG │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

Pick your level of grunt — lite (drop filler), full (default caveman), ultra (telegraphic), or wenyan (classical Chinese, even shorter). One command switch. Cost go down forever.

Speak your tongue. Caveman keep your language. You write Portuguese, caveman grunt Portuguese. Spanish, French, same. Compress the style, not the language. Code, command, error string stay exact.

"Novo ref de objeto cada render. Prop inline = novo ref = re-render. Envolva com useMemo."

Like this trick? Now get whole agent — caveman-code This skill shrink what agent say. caveman-code shrink everything — full terminal coding agent, caveman top to bottom. ~2× fewer tokens than Codex on identical tasks. 20+ providers · plan mode · autopilot goal loop · MIT. npm install -g @juliusbrussee/caveman-code ▶ Try caveman-code now → — why use many token when whole agent save

Install

One line. Find every agent. Install for each.

# macOS / Linux / WSL / Git Bash
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/main/install.sh | bash

# Windows (PowerShell 5.1+)
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/main/install.ps1 | iex

~30 seconds. Needs Node ≥18. Skip agent you no have. Safe to re-run.

Trigger: type /caveman or say "talk like caveman". Stop with "normal mode".

One agent only, manual command, or any of 30+ other agents → INSTALL.md. Install break? Open agent, say "Read CLAUDE.md and INSTALL.md, install caveman for me." Agent fix own brain.

What You Get

Skill	What
/caveman [lite|full|ultra|wenyan]	Compress every reply. Levels stick until session end.
/caveman-commit	Conventional Commit messages, ≤50 char subject. Why over what.
/caveman-review	One-line PR comments: L42: 🔴 bug: user null. Add guard.
/caveman-stats	Real session token usage + lifetime savings + USD. Tweetable line via --share.
/caveman-compress <file>	Rewrite memory file (e.g. CLAUDE.md) into caveman-speak. Cuts ~46% input tokens every session. Code/URLs/paths byte-preserved.
caveman-shrink	MCP middleware. Wraps any MCP server, compresses tool descriptions. npm.
cavecrew-*	Caveman subagents (investigator/builder/reviewer). ~60% fewer tokens than vanilla, main context lasts longer.

Statusline badge — Claude Code shows [CAVEMAN] ⛏ 12.4k (lifetime tokens saved). Updates every /caveman-stats run. Set CAVEMAN_STATUSLINE_SAVINGS=0 to silence.

Auto-activate every session: Claude Code, Codex, Gemini (built-in). Cursor / Windsurf / Cline / Copilot get always-on rule files via --with-init. Other agents trigger with /caveman per session. Full feature matrix in INSTALL.md.

Benchmarks

Real token counts from the Claude API. Average 65% output reduction across 10 prompts (range 22-87%) — measured against default (verbose) replies. Against a plain Answer concisely. control the median is ~50% (committed eval snapshot in evals/, tiktoken o200k_base). Both numbers are output tokens only.

Task	Normal	Caveman	Saved
Explain React re-render bug	1180	159	87%
Fix auth middleware token expiry	704	121	83%
Set up PostgreSQL connection pool	2347	380	84%
Explain git rebase vs merge	702	292	58%
Refactor callback to async/await	387	301	22%
Architecture: microservices vs monolith	446	310	30%
Review PR for security issues	678	398	41%
Docker multi-stage build	1042	290	72%
Debug PostgreSQL race condition	1200	232	81%
Implement React error boundary	3454	456	87%
Average	1214	294	65%

Raw data and reproduction script: benchmarks/. Three-arm eval harness (baseline / terse / skill) lives in evals/ — caveman compared against Answer concisely. not against verbose default, so the delta is honest.

caveman-compress receipts (real memory files):

File	Original	Compressed	Saved
claude-md-preferences.md	706	285	59.6%
project-notes.md	1145	535	53.3%
claude-md-project.md	1122	636	43.3%
todo-list.md	627	388	38.1%
mixed-with-code.md	888	560	36.9%
Average	898	481	46%

Important

Caveman only affects output tokens — input and thinking/reasoning tokens untouched. The skill itself adds ~1–1.5k input tokens per turn (the rules block), so whole-session savings are smaller than the output number, and terse workloads can come out net-negative. Caveman no make brain smaller. Caveman make mouth smaller. Biggest win is readability and speed, cost savings a bonus. When caveman wins, when caveman loses, how to measure yourself: docs/HONEST-NUMBERS.md.

A March 2026 paper "Brevity Constraints Reverse Performance Hierarchies in Language Models" found that constraining large models to brief responses improved accuracy by 26 points on certain benchmarks. Verbose not always better. Sometimes less word = more correct.

How It Work

1. Install drop skill file in agent.
2. Skill tell agent: drop filler, keep substance, use fragments.
3. For Claude Code, hook also write tiny flag file each session — agent see flag, talk caveman from message one. No need say /caveman.
4. Stats command read Claude Code session log, count tokens saved, write number to statusline.
5. Caveman-compress sub-skill rewrite memory files (CLAUDE.md, project notes) so each session start with smaller context. Save tokens forever, not just one reply.

Maintainer detail (hook architecture, file ownership, CI sync) live in CLAUDE.md.

Lobster, Meet Rock 🦞

OpenClaw the self-host gateway. One box, many agent inside (Claude Code, Codex, Pi, OpenCode), wired to your Slack / Discord / iMessage / Telegram / whatever. Tagline: "The lobster way." Lobster strong. Lobster smart. Lobster also talk a lot.

Caveman teach lobster brevity — same canonical installer, scoped to one agent:

# macOS / Linux / WSL
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --only openclaw

# Windows (PowerShell): no Node? install Node ≥18 first, then
npx -y github:JuliusBrussee/caveman -- --only openclaw

Two thing happen, no more:

1. Skill drop at ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/caveman/SKILL.md — spec-correct frontmatter (version, always: true), discoverable by openclaw skills list. Skill not auto-inject (OpenClaw load skill on demand) — that why we also do step 2.
2. SOUL.md nudge. Tiny marker-fenced block appended to ~/.openclaw/workspace/SOUL.md. OpenClaw inject SOUL.md into every turn under "Project Context" (12K-per-file, 60K total — block well under). Lobster terse from message one. No /caveman per session. No nag.

~/.openclaw/workspace/
├── skills/caveman/SKILL.md   ← full ruleset, on-demand load
└── SOUL.md                    ← <!-- caveman-begin --> ... <!-- caveman-end -->
                                  ↑ auto-inject every turn

Custom workspace path? OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE=/your/path before the command. Uninstall: same one-liner with --uninstall — skill folder gone, SOUL.md block ripped out cleanly, your other workspace content stay untouched. Idempotent re-runs (frontmatter not double-prepended, marker block not duplicated).

Lobster claw still sharp. Lobster mouth now small. Brain still big.

Caveman Ecosystem

Five tools. One philosophy: agent do more with less.

Repo	What
caveman (you here)	Output compression — why use many token when few do trick
caveman-code	Whole terminal coding agent — why use many token when whole agent can save
cavemem	Cross-agent memory — why agent forget when agent can remember
cavekit	Spec-driven build loop — why agent guess when agent can know
cavegemma	Gemma 4 31B fine-tuned on caveman pairs — why prompt every turn when weight remember

Compose: cavekit drive build, caveman compress what agent say, cavemem compress what agent remember, cavegemma bake compression into weight, caveman-code ship it all as one terminal agent. One rock. Two rock. Three rock. Four rock. Five rock. That it.

More Skill From Same Cave

Caveman has siblings. JuliusBrussee/skills — five skills, one install, works in Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini, Cline, Copilot, 40+ agents:

Skill	What
caveman	This one. Speak less, say more.
grill-me	Agent grill your plan before you build wrong thing. Checks how much you know first — no condescend, no coddle.
interface-kit	Build UI that look good, load fast, work for everyone.
junior-to-senior	Adversarial review pass. Junior output go in, senior output come out.
loop-factory	Spec-driven task loop — inbox → active → archive, review gate between.

npx skills@latest add JuliusBrussee/skills

One command. Five skill. Cave well stocked.

Privacy

Caveman no phone home. No telemetry, no analytics, no accounts, no backend. After install, zero network calls — skill is a prompt, hooks are local scripts, /caveman-stats reads your session log on your disk. Install-time fetches (GitHub + your agents' own registries) and scanner-warning explanations: SECURITY.md.

Links

• docs/HONEST-NUMBERS.md — when caveman saves, when caveman costs, how to measure
• INSTALL.md — full install matrix, all flags, per-agent detail
• CONTRIBUTING.md — how to send patch
• CLAUDE.md — maintainer guide (file ownership, hook architecture, CI)
• docs/ — extra guides (Windows install, etc.)
• Issues — bug, feature, weird behavior

Caveman Cloud

caveman make tokens small. caveman cloud prove it.

Local savings numbers (including /caveman-stats) are estimates — Caveman Cloud measures and verifies them across a team.

Star This Repo

Caveman save you token, save you money. Star cost zero. Fair trade. ⭐

Also by Julius Brussee

• Revu — local-first macOS study app with FSRS spaced repetition. revu.cards

Sponsors

caveman free forever. Sponsor keep rock sharp.

Atlas Cloud — full-modal AI inference platform, one API.

Want rock here too? Sponsor caveman.

License

MIT — free like mass mammoth on open plain.