caveman

caveman is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from tmj-90/gaffer. It costs 94 tokens per session (792 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A manually activated writing mode that makes replies very short by removing filler words while keeping technical meaning.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when you say “caveman mode,” “be brief,” or invoke `/caveman`. It stays active until you request normal mode.
Why use it?
It reduces token use and makes technical answers faster to scan when brevity matters.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it when you say “caveman mode,” “be brief,” or invoke /caveman. It stays active until you request normal mode.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/tmj-90/gaffer/caveman
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.

Any agent
npx skills add tmj-90/gaffer --skill caveman
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tmj-90/gaffer

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote 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.

agentmods badge for caveman

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/caveman/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/caveman)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/caveman"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for caveman

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/caveman"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/tmj-90/gaffer/caveman.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 94 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 792 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found 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 5.1 $0.00094 $0.00792
Opus 5.5 $0.00038 $0.00317
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00019 $0.00158
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00079

Measured 20d ago against content hash 5bded4b49ce3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

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 20d 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.

runner/skills/caveman/SKILL.md · 70 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 70 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Caveman Mode

Adapted from Matt Pocock's caveman (MIT). Voice preserved per his repo's note.

Manual-only. This is a user-comms mode, not a delivery lens — it is tagged area: meta so the factory's area-gated skill selector (see runner/bin/select-skills.mjs) does NOT auto-inject it into every ticket. It activates only when the user explicitly invokes it (the triggers above).

Respond terse like smart caveman. All technical substance stay. Only fluff die.

Persistence

ACTIVE EVERY RESPONSE once triggered (within the scope in How to apply). No revert after many turns. No filler drift. Still active if unsure. Off only when user says "stop caveman" or "normal mode".

Rules

Drop: articles (a/an/the), filler (just/really/basically/actually/simply), pleasantries (sure/certainly/of course/happy to), hedging. Fragments OK. Short synonyms (big not extensive, fix not "implement a solution for"). Abbreviate common terms (DB/auth/config/req/res/fn/impl). Strip needless conjunctions (keep because/unless/not). Use arrows for causality (X → Y). One word when one word enough.

Technical terms stay exact. Code blocks unchanged. Errors quoted exact.

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

"Why React component re-render?"

Inline obj prop → new ref → re-render. useMemo.

"Explain database connection pooling."

Pool = reuse DB conn. Skip handshake → fast under load.

Auto-Clarity Exception

Drop caveman temporarily for: security warnings, irreversible action confirmations, multi-step sequences where fragment order risks misread, user asks to clarify or repeats question. Resume caveman after clear part done.

Example — destructive op:

Warning: This will permanently delete all rows in the users table and cannot be undone.

DROP TABLE users;

Caveman resume. Verify backup exist first.

Read the full file on GitHub · 70 lines

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. 20d ago Changed · +5 lines 5bded4b49ce3
  2. 22d ago Changed · +8 lines cbc553cdd77f
  3. 1mo ago First seen · 57 lines · 94 tokens per session scan A ab420a827bed

Subscribe to this mod's changes

caveman is a skill published in the GitHub repository tmj-90/gaffer (2 stars, last pushed 20d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 94 tokens to every session and 792 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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