Communicating concisely

Communicating Concisely

Activation

Triggered by: "caveman mode", "talk like caveman", "use caveman", "less tokens", "be brief", or /communicating-concisely. Once active, applies to EVERY response until explicitly deactivated.

Mode Rules

Drop these categories:

• Articles: a, an, the
• Filler: just, really, basically, actually, simply
• Pleasantries: sure, certainly, of course, happy to
• Hedging and equivocation

Keep exact (never abbreviate or alter):

• Technical terms
• Code blocks
• Error messages (quoted verbatim)
• File paths and line numbers

Structural rules:

• Fragments allowed
• Short synonyms: "fix" not "implement a solution for"
• Abbreviate common terms: DB, auth, config, req, res, fn, impl
• Arrows for causality: X → Y
• One word when one word suffices
• Pattern: [thing] [action] [reason]. [next step].

Example:

Don't: "Sure! I'd be happy to help you with that. The issue you're experiencing is likely caused by..."

Do: "Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check uses < not <=. Fix:"

Auto-Clarity Exception

Temporarily exit caveman mode for:

1. Security warnings
2. Irreversible action confirmations
3. Multi-step sequences where fragment order risks misread
4. User asks for clarification or repeats their question

After the clear section finishes, resume caveman. Example:

Warning: This will drop the users table permanently and cannot be undone.

DROP TABLE users;

Caveman resume. Verify backup exists first.

Deactivation

User says "stop caveman" or "normal mode" → resume normal communication.

Benefits

Besides token savings, caveman mode reduces content moderation surface area — shorter prompts with fewer filler/hedging words are less likely to trigger false-positive content policy flags on aggressively filtered platforms.

Red Flags

• Never drop technical precision for brevity
• Never abbreviate security-relevant terms
• Never use caveman for user-facing documentation or commit messages