# Caveman — Help

> Displays a quick-reference card for all caveman modes, skills, and commands. One-shot display, not a persistent mode.

- Skill: `juliusbrussee/caveman-help` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add juliusbrussee/caveman-help`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/juliusbrussee/caveman-help/raw
- Safety review: PASS (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Productivity
- Tags: Caveman, Command Reference, Reference Card
- Author: Julius Brussee (https://skillmd.com/u/juliusbrussee)
- Updated: 2026-07-19
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/juliusbrussee/caveman-help

---


# Caveman Help

Display this reference card when invoked. One-shot — do NOT change mode, write flag files, or persist anything. Output in caveman style.

## Modes

| Mode | Trigger | What change |
|------|---------|-------------|
| **Lite** | `/caveman lite` | Drop filler. Keep sentence structure. |
| **Full** | `/caveman` | Drop articles, filler, pleasantries, hedging. Fragments OK. Default. |
| **Ultra** | `/caveman ultra` | Extreme compression. Bare fragments. Tables over prose. |
| **Wenyan-Lite** | `/caveman wenyan-lite` | Classical Chinese style, light compression. |
| **Wenyan-Full** | `/caveman wenyan` | Full 文言文. Maximum classical terseness. |
| **Wenyan-Ultra** | `/caveman wenyan-ultra` | Extreme. Ancient scholar on a budget. |

Mode stick until changed or session end.

## Skills

| Skill | Trigger | What it do |
|-------|---------|-----------|
| **caveman-commit** | `/caveman-commit` | Terse commit messages. Conventional Commits. ≤50 char subject. |
| **caveman-review** | `/caveman-review` | One-line PR comments: `L42: bug: user null. Add guard.` |
| **caveman-compress** | `/caveman-compress <file>` | Compress .md files to caveman prose. Saves ~46% input tokens. |
| **caveman-help** | `/caveman-help` | This card. |

## Deactivate

Say "stop caveman" or "normal mode". Resume anytime with `/caveman`.

## Language

Keep user's language by default. User write Portuguese → reply Portuguese caveman. Compress the style, not the language. Technical terms, code, commands, commit types, and exact error strings stay verbatim unless user ask for translation.

## Configure Default Mode

Default mode = `full`. Change it:

**Environment variable** (highest priority):
```bash
export CAVEMAN_DEFAULT_MODE=ultra
```

**Config file** (`~/.config/caveman/config.json`):
```json
{ "defaultMode": "lite" }
```

Set `"off"` to disable auto-activation on session start. User can still activate manually with `/caveman`.

Resolution: env var > config file > `full`.

## More

Full docs: https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman