caveman-skill

shut up and code

Install • Before / After • Benchmarks • Rules • Why

---

A skill for Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, Codex, and 40+ other agents. Makes your AI stop narrating its life story and just give you the answer.

Your coding assistant wastes up to 61% of output tokens on filler — greetings, play-by-play, summaries of what it just did, offers to do more. Caveman kills all of it. One install. Every session after.

Before / After

Normal (148 tokens) "I'll search for all TypeScript test files in your project. Let me look through the codebase for files matching common test patterns. I found the following TypeScript test files: src/__tests__/auth.test.ts src/__tests__/api.test.ts src/__tests__/utils.test.ts That's 3 test files total in src/__tests__/. Would you like me to look at any of these?"	Caveman (15 tokens) - src/__tests__/auth.test.ts - src/__tests__/api.test.ts - src/__tests__/utils.test.ts
Normal "I can see the error you're encountering. This is a TypeScript type error — the function expects a string but you're passing a number. Let me fix that for you. I've updated the code to cast the value to a string using .toString(). The error should be resolved now. Would you like me to run the tests to confirm?"	Caveman "userId was number, param expects string. Cast added. Tests pass."
Normal "Great question! I'll go ahead and update the timeout value for you. Let me open the config file and make that change. I've updated the timeout from 5000 to 10000 milliseconds in src/config.ts. This should resolve your issue. Let me know if you need anything else!"	Caveman "src/config.ts:14 — timeout: 5000 → 10000"

Same answer. Way less theatre.

Install

Using skills.sh (recommended)

Works with 45+ agents. One command.

npx skills add Shawnchee/caveman-skill

# Global (all projects)
npx skills add Shawnchee/caveman-skill -g

# Specific agent
npx skills add Shawnchee/caveman-skill -a claude-code
npx skills add Shawnchee/caveman-skill -a cursor
npx skills add Shawnchee/caveman-skill -a windsurf

# CI-friendly (no prompts)
npx skills add Shawnchee/caveman-skill -g -a claude-code -y

Manual

git clone https://github.com/Shawnchee/caveman-skill.git

Copy the skill file for your agent:

Agent	Project	Global
Claude Code	.claude/skills/	~/.claude/skills/
Cursor	.cursor/skills/	~/.cursor/skills/
Windsurf	.windsurf/skills/	~/.windsurf/skills/
Codex / OpenCode	.codex/skills/	~/.codex/skills/
Gemini CLI	.gemini/skills/	~/.gemini/skills/
Copilot	.github/copilot-instructions.md	—
Antigravity	Project config directory	—

# Example: Claude Code, project-level
cp -r caveman-skill/caveman .claude/skills/

# Example: Claude Code, global
cp -r caveman-skill/caveman ~/.claude/skills/

Uninstall

npx skills remove caveman
# or: rm -rf .claude/skills/caveman

Benchmarks

Token counts verified with tiktoken cl100k_base. Four standard tasks, measured honestly:

Task	Normal	Caveman	Reduction
Web Search	82	26	68%
Code Edit	192	96	50%
File Exploration	148	71	52%
Q&A Explanation	209	58	72%
Average	158	63	61%

Estimated real-world session savings: 12–24%. Input tokens don't change — this is the honest number, not a marketing number.

[!NOTE]
Caveman only targets output tokens — reasoning/thinking tokens are untouched. Brain same size. Mouth smaller.

Full benchmark data with before/after transcripts: benchmarks/data.md

The 10 Rules

#	Rule	What dies
1	No filler phrases	"I'd be happy to", "Sure!", "Great question"
2	Execute first, talk second	Pre-task narration
3	Be direct — fragments where clear	Unnecessary articles, pronouns
4	No meta-commentary	"I'm going to search for..."
5	No preamble	Restating the question
6	No postamble	"Let me know if you need anything else!"
7	No tool announcements	"Let me read that file"
8	Explain only when needed	Unsolicited tutorials
9	Code speaks	English wrappers around code blocks
10	Error = fix	Apologies, error narration

What Stays

Caveman cuts words, never facts.

Content	Caveman touch?
Code blocks	Never — full snippet, not summary
Error messages	Never — exact text
File paths	Never — exact path
Technical terms	Never — polymorphism stays polymorphism
Numbers, versions	Never — exact values

When Rules Bend

Caveman isn't stupid. Rules bend when clarity demands it:

• Surprising result → brief explanation ("Fixed — but note: this disables auth caching")
• User asks why → answer the question
• Destructive action → warn first ("Deletes all rows in sessions. No rollback. Proceed?")
• Ambiguous plan → clarify before executing

The test: would a senior engineer reading this miss something important? If yes, add words. If no, cut them.

Why This Works

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│  OUTPUT TOKENS SAVED    ████████ 61% │
│  TECHNICAL ACCURACY     ████████ 100%│
│  FILLER ELIMINATED      ████████ YES │
│  BRAIN DAMAGE           ░░░░░░░░ 0%  │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

LLMs default to polite and verbose. Every response starts with ceremony and ends with an encore. Caveman overrides that at the system level:

• Filler tokens come first — "I'd be happy to help" generates before the actual answer. Killing it saves tokens immediately.
• Narration compounds — announcing tools, summarizing results, and offering follow-ups each add zero-value tokens. Over 50 turns, that's 1,000–2,000 wasted tokens.
• Context bloat — every verbose output becomes input on the next turn. Terse responses keep the context window lean across the whole session.
• Useful content is untouched — code, paths, errors, explanations stay exactly the same. Only the wrapper shrinks.

Supported Agents

Agent	Config	Location
Claude Code	SKILL.md (YAML frontmatter)	.claude/skills/caveman/SKILL.md
Cursor	Plain markdown	.cursorrules
Windsurf	Plain markdown	.windsurfrules
GitHub Copilot	Plain markdown	.github/copilot-instructions.md
Antigravity	Plain markdown	Project config directory

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Keep it simple — these are markdown configs, not application code.

License

MIT — free like open plain.