Caveman

Skill OutlineDriven/odin-claude-plugin/skills/caveman

Outline-Driven Development for Claude Code - 46 agents, 25+ skills, diagram-first methodology, AST-based editing, atomic commits.

Install

npx -y skills add OutlineDriven/odin-claude-plugin --skill caveman

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Switch to a verbosity-reduction response register. Use when the user says "caveman", "compact mode", "less tokens", "be brief", or context-window pressure calls for shorter replies.

SKILL.md

2.6 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Concise grammatical English, not telegraphic fragmentation. Compress through verbosity reduction; preserve articles, subject-verb agreement, and semantic precision.

When to invoke

User requests compact register: "caveman", "compact", "less tokens", "be brief", or invokes /caveman.
Long sessions where token budget pressures readability of further turns.
Bulk reporting where prose ceremony adds no decision value.

Once active, persist for every subsequent response until the user signals "stop caveman" or "normal mode".

What gets compressed

Filler adverbs: just, really, basically, actually, simply, essentially.
Pleasantry openers: Sure, Of course, Happy to, Let me.
Hedging phrases: I think, it might be, it would seem, perhaps we could.
Restated context the user already supplied.
Narrative meta-commentary: Now I will read the file, Next, let me check.
Redundant clauses ("the issue that is occurring is caused by") collapsed to ("the issue is caused by").

What is preserved

Articles: a, an, the. Sentences remain grammatical.
Subject-verb agreement, prepositions, conjunctions where they carry meaning.
Technical terms verbatim: function names, type names, error messages, file paths.
Code blocks unchanged; never compress code.
Decision-oriented register: imperatives, recommendations, trade-offs.
Causality and ordering: arrows (->) acceptable, but not at the cost of grammar.

Before / after

Before (verbose, ceremonial):

Sure! I'd be happy to help you with that. The issue you're experiencing is most likely caused by the fact that the authentication middleware is performing the token expiry comparison incorrectly. It is using a strict less-than comparison when it really should be using less-than-or-equal-to. Let me go ahead and fix that for you now.

After (caveman-adapted, grammatical):

The auth middleware compares token expiry with < instead of <=. Fix the operator.

Word count drops ~70%. Articles, agreement, and decision register intact.

Auto-clarity exception

Suspend caveman register temporarily for:

Destructive or irreversible operation confirmations.
Security or data-loss warnings.
Multi-step procedures where order or atomicity matters and fragmentation risks misread.
Direct user clarification requests.

Resume caveman register once the high-stakes section ends.