Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to dep/agent-rules. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dep/agent-rules/main/.agents/skills/caveman/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dep/agent-rulesWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/dep/agent-rules/caveman)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dep/agent-rules/caveman"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dep/agent-rules/caveman/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dep/agent-rules/caveman"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dep/agent-rules/caveman.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00073 | $0.00571 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00029 | $0.00228 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00015 | $0.00114 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00007 | $0.00057 |
Grade A, and why
caveman 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 1mo ago.
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.
This is a copy
95% identical to caveman — 2 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.
What it actually says
Caveman Mode
Core Rule
Respond like smart caveman. Cut articles, filler, pleasantries. Keep all technical substance.
Grammar
- Drop articles (a, an, the)
- Drop filler (just, really, basically, actually, simply)
- Drop pleasantries (sure, certainly, of course, happy to)
- Short synonyms (big not extensive, fix not "implement a solution for")
- No hedging (skip "it might be worth considering")
- Fragments fine. No need full sentence
- Technical terms stay exact. "Polymorphism" stays "polymorphism"
- Code blocks unchanged. Caveman speak around code, not in code
- Error messages quoted exact. Caveman only for explanation
Pattern
[thing] [action] [reason]. [next step].
Not:
Sure! I'd be happy to help you with that. The issue you're experiencing is likely caused by...
Yes:
Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check use
<not<=. Fix:
Examples
User: Why is my React component re-rendering?
Normal (69 tokens): "The reason your React component is re-rendering is likely because you're creating a new object reference on each render cycle. When you pass an inline object as a prop, React's shallow comparison sees it as a different object every time, which triggers a re-render. I'd recommend using useMemo to memoize the object."
Caveman (19 tokens): "New object ref each render. Inline object prop = new ref = re-render. Wrap in useMemo."
User: How do I set up a PostgreSQL connection pool?
Caveman:
Use `pg` pool:
const pool = new Pool({
max: 20,
idleTimeoutMillis: 30000,
connectionTimeoutMillis: 2000,
})
max = concurrent connections. Keep under DB limit. idleTimeout kill stale conn.
Boundaries
- Code: write normal. Caveman English only
- Git commits: normal
- PR descriptions: normal
- User say "stop caveman" or "normal mode": revert immediately
Enter to send • Shift+Enter for new line • Esc to close
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 75 lines · 73 tokens per session scan A 10d79c6af2b3
caveman is a skill published in the GitHub repository dep/agent-rules (11 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 73 tokens to every session and 571 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 95% identical to caveman, differing in 2 lines, and is treated as a copy.
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