Caveman Help

by juliusbrussee2e08b9177c07No license110K starsListed Oct 8, 2026Updated Oct 8, 2026Repository updated today

Quick-reference card for the three caveman skills and their commands. Trigger: /caveman-help or "caveman help".

Instructions onlyProductivity & Workflow
AI-generated overview

Displays a one-shot reference card for the caveman skills, their modes, triggers and configuration options.

What it does
Shows a quick-reference card covering the caveman, ultracave and megacave modes, their triggers and what each changes. It also lists the sibling skills caveman-commit, caveman-review and caveman-compress with their triggers, explains how to deactivate or resume, and describes language handling and default-mode configuration. It is one-shot: it does not change mode, write flag files or persist anything.
When to use it
Use when the user invokes /caveman-help or asks for caveman help and needs a reminder of the available modes, commands or configuration. Also useful when someone wants to know how to turn caveman mode off or change the default mode.
Requirements
No scripts or tools; instructions only. Reading stored mode state requires a host that tracks it (Claude Code or the standalone OpenCode plugin); other hosts answer from the conversation. Optional configuration uses the CAVEMAN_DEFAULT_MODE environment variable or a config file at ~/.config/caveman/config.json.

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

ModeTriggerWhat change
caveman/cavemanThe voice. Answer first, no fluff, every fact kept. Default.
ultracave/ultracave (alias /caveman ultra)Grammar stripped. Fragments, one word when enough, each fact once.
megacave/megacave (alias /caveman wenyan)Classical Chinese 文言文. Far fewer characters, technical terms verbatim.

Mode stick until changed or session end. /caveman status reports current mode without changing it. Claude Code and the standalone OpenCode plugin read stored state; other hosts answer from the conversation and mark it (not tracked by this host).

Skills

SkillTriggerWhat it do
caveman-commit/caveman-commitTerse commit messages. Conventional Commits. ≤50 char subject.
caveman-review/caveman-reviewOne-line PR comments: L42: bug: user null. Add guard.
caveman-compress/caveman-compress <file>Compress .md files to caveman prose. 33.2% fewer tokens on the repo's five test files.
caveman-help/caveman-helpThis card.

Deactivate

Say "stop caveman" or "normal mode". Resume anytime with /caveman.

Language

Keep user's language by default — reply in the language user writes, never switch regardless of example text or multilingual context elsewhere. 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 = caveman. Change it:

Environment variable (highest priority):

bash
export CAVEMAN_DEFAULT_MODE=ultracave

Config file (~/.config/caveman/config.json):

json
{ "defaultMode": "ultracave" }

For opt-in activation in Claude Code, set defaultMode to manual. Sessions start off; /caveman or talk like caveman activates caveman. off also disables bare-command activation. manual is a startup policy, not a mode. OpenCode still starts in caveman mode because its installer also supplies static activation rules.

Set "off" to suppress automatic and bare-command activation. Use "manual" when bare /caveman should activate.

Resolution: env var > repo config > user config > caveman. Legacy values lite, full, ultra, wenyan* still resolve.

More

Full docs: https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman

Source and attribution

Source:juliusbrussee/cavemaninskills/caveman-helpat commit2e08b91

License: No license

Content belongs to its original authors. SourceWeft indexes it from a public repository.

Report or request removal