juliusbrussee/caveman

Caveman is a plugin and skill for AI coding assistants (primarily Claude Code, but also Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, and many others) that instructs the AI to respond in an ultra-terse, stripped-down style inspired by caveman speech. The idea, which the README claims is backed by research, is that AI models can convey the exact same technical information using far fewer words, and fewer words means fewer tokens, which means faster responses and lower API costs. The tool works by installing a plugin or skill file into your coding agent's configuration directory. Once active, the AI drops filler phrases, pleasantries, and verbose explanations, and gives you only the core technical answer. For example, instead of a paragraph explaining why a React component re-renders, you get: "New object ref each render. Inline object prop = new ref = re-render. Wrap in useMemo." The plugin offers multiple intensity levels (lite, full, ultra, and a classical Chinese mode) so you can tune how aggressively it compresses output. Beyond mode switching, the tool also provides companion commands like caveman-commit for writing terse git commit messages, caveman-review for one-line code reviews, caveman-compress for shrinking the prompts you send to the AI, and caveman-stats for tracking how many tokens you have saved over time. Installation is a single command that auto-detects which agents you have installed. You would use caveman if you are an AI-assisted developer who wants faster responses and lower costs without sacrificing technical accuracy. The stack is Python-based with shell scripts and JavaScript for the various agent integrations.