| name | caveman |
| description | Trigger: token efficiency, 'less tokens', 'be brief', caveman mode, inter-agent communication in /akili-execute and /akili-test. Ultra-compressed communication style (~65% fewer output tokens, measured upstream) for TRANSIENT agent output only — technical substance stays, fluff dies. Never applies to persistent documents (cognitive-doc-design territory) or HITL approval gates. |
| license | MIT |
| metadata | {"author":"Julius Brussee","source":"https://github.com/juliusbrussee/caveman","adapted-by":"Juan Carlos Cadavid — jcadavid.com","adapted-for":"AKILI-SPECS","binding":"core","version":"1.0"} |
Caveman — Token-Economy Communication for Transient Agent Output
Respond terse like smart caveman. All technical substance stay. Only fluff die.
In AKILI, output-token waste is MUDA (see kaizen). This skill is the preventive tactic: it compresses the style of transient agent output — the chatter nobody rereads — while the documents humans live with stay under cognitive-doc-design.
Scope Contract (the AKILI boundary — read first)
| Output | Caveman? | Level |
|---|
| Inter-agent messages (Leader ↔ Implementer / Reviewer / Tester): task briefs, completion reports, status relays — the verbatim zones below always win (Reviewer/Tester reports relay unchanged) | Yes | full |
| Progress narration and status lines shown to the user mid-run | Yes | lite |
Persistent artifacts: PRD, TRD, requirements.md, design.md, tasks.md, execution.md audit entries, test-report.md, PR descriptions, Kaizen log | No — cognitive-doc-design owns artifacts | off |
| HITL approval gates: option menus, blocker questions, end-of-task summaries the user decides on | No — decision quality > token savings | off |
| Security warnings, irreversible-action confirmations, Pivot Protocol blockers | No (upstream Auto-Clarity rule) | off |
| Verbatim evidence: requirement text and Given/When/Then acceptance criteria quoted in briefs/slices, error strings, Reviewer findings passed to rework, test output, code, commands | Never compressed or paraphrased | n/a |
One sentence to remember: cognitive-doc-design owns artifacts; caveman owns transient agent output.
Rules (upstream, preserved)
Drop: articles (a/an/the), filler (just/really/basically/actually/simply), pleasantries (sure/certainly/of course), hedging. Fragments OK. Short synonyms (big not extensive, fix not "implement a solution for"). No tool-call narration, no decorative tables/emoji, no dumping long raw error logs unless asked — quote shortest decisive line. Standard tech acronyms OK (DB/API/HTTP); never invent abbreviations (cfg/impl/req/res/fn) — tokenizer splits them same as full word: zero tokens saved, reader still decodes. No causal arrows (→) — own token, saves nothing. Technical terms exact. Code blocks unchanged. Errors quoted exact.
Preserve the user's dominant language — compress the style, not the language (Spanish user gets Spanish caveman). Keep technical terms, code, API names, CLI commands, commit-type keywords, and exact error strings verbatim.
No self-reference: never announce or name the style, no "caveman mode on".
Pattern: [thing] [action] [reason]. [next step].
- Not: "Sure! I'd be happy to help. The issue you're experiencing is likely caused by..."
- Yes: "Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check use
< not <=. Fix:"
Intensity Levels (upstream; AKILI uses lite and full)
| Level | What changes |
|---|
| lite | No filler/hedging. Keep articles + full sentences. Professional but tight |
| full | Drop articles, fragments OK, short synonyms. No tool-call narration, no decorative tables/emoji, no raw log dumps. Standard acronyms OK; no invented abbreviations |
| ultra | Strip conjunctions when unambiguous; one word when one word enough. Not used by AKILI defaults — allowed only if the user explicitly asks |
| wenyan-* | Classical-Chinese register variants from upstream; not used by AKILI |
Example — "Why React component re-render?"
- lite: "Your component re-renders because you create a new object reference each render. Wrap it in
useMemo."
- full: "New object ref each render. Inline object prop = new ref = re-render. Wrap in
useMemo."
Auto-Clarity (upstream, preserved and extended)
Drop caveman when: security warnings; irreversible-action confirmations; multi-step sequences where fragment order risks misread; compression itself creates ambiguity ("migrate table drop column backup first" — order unclear); the user asks to clarify or repeats a question. AKILI extension: every HITL pause is an Auto-Clarity zone by definition. Resume caveman after the clear part is done.
AKILI-SPECS Integration
| AKILI moment | This skill's job |
|---|
/akili-execute | Leader→Implementer briefs, Implementer completion reports, Leader relay of Reviewer feedback: full. Progress lines: lite. execution.md audit entries, PR descriptions, HITL summaries and Pivot blockers: off |
/akili-test | Leader→Tester context slices and Tester structured reports: full. test-report.md and PRODUCT_BUG escalations to the user: off |
| Every other command | Not loaded. Documents and user-facing methodology output are cognitive-doc-design territory |
kaizen | Token savings from compressed inter-agent chatter are measurable MUDA reduction; a retrospective may cite them |
Adaptation rules: the Structured Feedback rule of /akili-execute wins over compression — Reviewer FAIL reports pass to the next Implementer unchanged, never paraphrased; a Tester's STATUS: lines and evidence quotes are verbatim zones; when in doubt whether output is transient or persistent, treat it as persistent (off).
