caveman-compress

A tool that rewrites natural-language memory files such as CLAUDE.md, task lists, and preferences into shorter, human-readable shorthand while keeping their technical content.

In plain words
What is it for?
Compressing memory files with the provided command, validating the result, and restoring the original from the saved backup if needed.
Why use it?
It reduces the amount of text loaded into an agent session, while saving the original file as a backup.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/arogyareddy/https-github.com-juliusbrussee-caveman/caveman-compress
Any agent
npx skills add ArogyaReddy/https-github.com-JuliusBrussee-caveman --skill caveman-compress
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ArogyaReddy/https-github.com-JuliusBrussee-caveman

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 78 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,054 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 91% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00078 $0.01054
Opus 5 $0.00039 $0.00527
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00211
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00105

Measured 2d ago against content hash 1c7997b306c2, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

caveman-compress scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 7 executable files (scripts/__init__.py, scripts/__main__.py, scripts/benchmark.py, …), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

91% identical to caveman-compress — 12 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

caveman-compress/SKILL.md · 112 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 112 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Caveman Compress

Purpose

Compress natural language files (CLAUDE.md, todos, preferences) into caveman-speak to reduce input tokens. Compressed version overwrites original. Human-readable backup saved as <filename>.original.md.

Trigger

/caveman:compress <filepath> or when user asks to compress a memory file.

Process

  1. The compression scripts live in caveman-compress/scripts/ (adjacent to this SKILL.md). If the path is not immediately available, search for caveman-compress/scripts/__main__.py.

  2. Run:

cd caveman-compress && python3 -m scripts <absolute_filepath>

  1. The CLI will:
  • detect file type (no tokens)
  • call Claude to compress
  • validate output (no tokens)
  • if errors: cherry-pick fix with Claude (targeted fixes only, no recompression)
  • retry up to 2 times
  • if still failing after 2 retries: report error to user, leave original file untouched
  1. Return result to user

Compression Rules

Remove

  • Articles: a, an, the
  • Filler: just, really, basically, actually, simply, essentially, generally
  • Pleasantries: "sure", "certainly", "of course", "happy to", "I'd recommend"
  • Hedging: "it might be worth", "you could consider", "it would be good to"
  • Redundant phrasing: "in order to" → "to", "make sure to" → "ensure", "the reason is because" → "because"
  • Connective fluff: "however", "furthermore", "additionally", "in addition"

Preserve EXACTLY (never modify)

  • Code blocks (fenced ``` and indented)
  • Inline code (backtick content)
  • URLs and links (full URLs, markdown links)
  • File paths (/src/components/..., ./config.yaml)
  • Commands (npm install, git commit, docker build)
  • Technical terms (library names, API names, protocols, algorithms)
  • Proper nouns (project names, people, companies)
  • Dates, version numbers, numeric values
  • Environment variables ($HOME, NODE_ENV)

Preserve Structure

  • All markdown headings (keep exact heading text, compress body below)
  • Bullet point hierarchy (keep nesting level)
  • Numbered lists (keep numbering)
  • Tables (compress cell text, keep structure)
  • Frontmatter/YAML headers in markdown files

Read the full file on GitHub · 112 lines

Files

What ships with it

9 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 112 lines · 78 tokens per session scan A 1c7997b306c2

Subscribe to this mod's changes

caveman-compress is a skill published in the GitHub repository ArogyaReddy/https-github.com-JuliusBrussee-caveman (4 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 78 tokens to every session and 1,054 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 91% identical to caveman-compress, differing in 12 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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