Caveman Help
- 259k installs
- 93.6k repo stars
- Updated July 26, 2026
- juliusbrussee/caveman
caveman-help is a reference skill that displays modes, commands, and configuration for caveman-style compressed communication across six intensity levels.
About
Reference skill for caveman-mode communication styles. Displays quick-reference card for all modes, skills, and commands. Helps compress communication output by dropping filler, articles, and pleasantries in six intensity levels from lite to ultra.
- Six communication modes from lite to ultra compression
- Token-saving compression up to 46% on markdown
- Four bundled skills: help, commit, review, compress
Caveman Help by the numbers
- 259,421 all-time installs (skills.sh)
- +17,954 installs in the week ending Jul 28, 2026 (Skillselion tracking)
- Ranked #19 of 3,301 Productivity & Planning skills by installs in the Skillselion catalog
- Security screen: LOW risk (skills.sh audit)
- Data as of Jul 28, 2026 (Skillselion catalog sync)
caveman-help capabilities & compatibility
- Capabilities
- mode display · style reference · configuration lookup
- Use cases
- documentation
What caveman-help says it does
Drop filler. Keep sentence structure.
npx skills add https://github.com/juliusbrussee/caveman --skill caveman-helpAdd your badge
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| Installs | 259k |
|---|---|
| repo stars | ★ 93.6k |
| Security audit | 3 / 3 scanners passed |
| Last updated | July 26, 2026 |
| Repository | juliusbrussee/caveman ↗ |
What are all the Caveman slash commands?
Compress communication style to reduce token usage and display communication reference card.
Who is it for?
Agents optimizing token output; developers preferring terse documentation; workflows where compression saves API costs.
Skip if: Learning git or review concepts from scratch, or permanently configuring default agent personality without reading full skill docs.
When should I use this skill?
User says caveman help, what caveman commands, /caveman-help, or forgets which caveman sibling skill to invoke.
What you get
Printed cheat sheet of modes, sibling skills, deactivation phrases, and default-mode config instructions.
- caveman command cheat sheet
By the numbers
- Documents 4 caveman modes: full, lite, ultra, wenyan
Files
Caveman Help
Display this reference card when invoked. One-shot — do NOT change mode, write flag files, or persist anything. Output in caveman style.
Modes
| Mode | Trigger | What change |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | /caveman lite | Drop filler. Keep sentence structure. |
| Full | /caveman | Drop articles, filler, pleasantries, hedging. Fragments OK. Default. |
| Ultra | /caveman ultra | Extreme compression. Bare fragments. Tables over prose. |
| Wenyan-Lite | /caveman wenyan-lite | Classical Chinese style, light compression. |
| Wenyan-Full | /caveman wenyan | Full 文言文. Maximum classical terseness. |
| Wenyan-Ultra | /caveman wenyan-ultra | Extreme. Ancient scholar on a budget. |
Mode stick until changed or session end.
Skills
| Skill | Trigger | What it do |
|---|---|---|
| caveman-commit | /caveman-commit | Terse commit messages. Conventional Commits. ≤50 char subject. |
| caveman-review | /caveman-review | One-line PR comments: L42: bug: user null. Add guard. |
| caveman-compress | /caveman-compress <file> | Compress .md files to caveman prose. Saves ~46% input tokens. |
| caveman-help | /caveman-help | This card. |
Deactivate
Say "stop caveman" or "normal mode". Resume anytime with /caveman.
Language
Keep user's language by default. User write Portuguese → reply Portuguese caveman. Compress the style, not the language. Technical terms, code, commands, commit types, and exact error strings stay verbatim unless user ask for translation.
Configure Default Mode
Default mode = full. Change it:
Environment variable (highest priority):
export CAVEMAN_DEFAULT_MODE=ultraConfig file (~/.config/caveman/config.json):
{ "defaultMode": "lite" }Set "off" to disable auto-activation on session start. User can still activate manually with /caveman.
Resolution: env var > config file > full.
More
Full docs: https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman
caveman-help
Quick-reference card. One shot, no mode change.
What it does
Prints a cheat sheet of all caveman modes, sibling skills, deactivation triggers, and how to set the default mode via env var or config file. One-shot display — does not flip the active mode, write flag files, or persist anything. Use when you forget the slash commands.
How to invoke
/caveman-helpAlso triggers on "caveman help", "what caveman commands", "how do I use caveman".
Example output
Modes:
/caveman full (default)
/caveman lite lighter
/caveman ultra extreme
/caveman wenyan classical Chinese
Skills:
/caveman-commit terse Conventional Commits
/caveman-review one-line PR comments
/caveman-stats session token savings
Deactivate:
"stop caveman" or "normal mode"See also
- `SKILL.md` — full reference card
- Caveman README — repo overview
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Does caveman-help change the active caveman mode?
caveman-help is one-shot reference only. It prints modes, sibling skills, and deactivation triggers without flipping the active mode, writing flag files, or persisting configuration.
How do you disable caveman after reading caveman-help?
caveman-help documents deactivation phrases "stop caveman" and "normal mode". Those phrases end caveman terse mode; caveman-help itself only displays the reference card.
Is Caveman Help safe to install?
skills.sh reports 3 of 3 security scanners passed. Review the Security Audits panel on this page before installing in production.