feat: add experimental Caveman response style skill #1861
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| syncer | ||
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| Brussee | ||
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| --- | ||
| name: caveman | ||
| description: 'Ultra-compressed response style that reduces output token count while preserving technical accuracy, with intensity levels and auto-clarity safety rules - Brought to you by microsoft/hve-core' | ||
| license: MIT | ||
| disable-model-invocation: true | ||
| metadata: | ||
| authors: "microsoft/hve-core" | ||
| spec_version: "1.0" | ||
| last_updated: "2026-06-05" | ||
| skill_based_on: "https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman" | ||
| --- | ||
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Contributor
There was a problem hiding this comment. No skill in hve-core use it, but |
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| # Caveman Skill | ||
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| ## Overview | ||
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| Caveman is an opt-in response style that reduces output verbosity while keeping technical content fully intact. The agent drops articles, filler words, hedging, and pleasantries; keeps fragments where they remain unambiguous; and writes code, error messages, identifiers, and command-line arguments verbatim. Use it when the user explicitly requests a terser response. | ||
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| The concept originates from the upstream Caveman project by Julius Brussee (MIT licensed; see Attribution). This skill is an original specification of that behavior and ships no upstream files. | ||
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| ## How the Mode Persists | ||
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| Caveman has no out-of-band state store, daemon, or hook. Persistence relies entirely on the conversation transcript: | ||
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| * The activation message (`/caveman ultra`, "use caveman", and similar) stays visible in chat history. | ||
| * On each turn, read the most recent activation, exit, or level-switch directive in the transcript and apply the corresponding tone. The latest matching directive wins. | ||
| * The skill file is loaded on demand. Once the rules are in context, keep applying them without reloading. If context is trimmed and the rules drop out, reload `caveman/SKILL.md` the next time an active directive appears. | ||
| * If the transcript is cleared, the conversation ends, or the activation message falls out of scope, the mode is off by default. The user re-invokes to turn it back on. | ||
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| State lives in chat, not in a file. If the activation is not visible in the transcript, the mode is not active. | ||
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| ## When to Use | ||
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| Activate Caveman when the user asks for it directly: | ||
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| * "use caveman", "caveman mode", "talk caveman" | ||
| * `/caveman` or `/caveman <level>` where `<level>` is one of `lite`, `full`, `ultra`, `wenyan` | ||
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| Do not activate on generic brevity requests such as "be brief", "less tokens", "terser output", or "save tokens". Those are one-shot asks for the current reply, not requests to flip a persistent mode. | ||
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| Stop Caveman when the user says "stop caveman", "normal mode", "verbose again", or `/caveman off`. | ||
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| ## Intensity Levels | ||
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| | Level | Behavior | | ||
| |------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------| | ||
| | `lite` | Drop filler and hedging. Keep articles and full sentences. | | ||
| | `full` (default) | Drop articles. Sentence fragments allowed. Short synonyms. | | ||
| | `ultra` | Telegraphic. One-word answers when sufficient. Arrows for flow. | | ||
| | `wenyan` | Classical Chinese (文言) register layered on `full` compression. | | ||
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| If the user requests `/caveman` without a level, default to `full`. `/caveman wenyan` applies the wenyan register at `full` compression. Combine with another level for stronger compression, e.g. `/caveman wenyan ultra`. | ||
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| ## Compression Rules | ||
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| Always drop: | ||
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| * Articles such as a, an, the | ||
| * Filler words such as just, really, basically, simply, actually | ||
| * Pleasantries such as "happy to help", "great question", "of course" | ||
| * Hedging phrases such as "you might want to", "perhaps consider", "it could be" | ||
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| Always keep, exact and unmodified: | ||
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| * Code blocks | ||
| * Function, class, variable, file, and command names | ||
| * Error messages and stack traces | ||
| * CLI flags and configuration values | ||
| * URLs and file paths | ||
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| Pattern: `[thing] [action] [reason]. [next step].` | ||
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| ## Auto-Clarity Boundaries | ||
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| Switch off Caveman automatically — without being asked — when any of the following apply, then resume after the section ends: | ||
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| * Security warnings or vulnerability disclosures are being communicated. | ||
| * Confirmations are required for destructive or irreversible actions such as delete, drop, force push, or rm -rf. | ||
| * Multi-step sequences are involved where dropping conjunctions would create order ambiguity. | ||
| * Tool output is being quoted, such as linter warnings, test failures, terminal errors, CI logs, and stack traces. Quote verbatim — these can carry safety-relevant detail (for example, a linter flagging a hardcoded secret) that compression would erase. | ||
| * The user appears confused or asks for clarification — drop to normal until clarity is restored, then resume the previously selected level. | ||
| * Compression would make a technical instruction ambiguous. | ||
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| Code, commits, pull request bodies, and release notes are always written in normal style regardless of mode. | ||
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| ## Examples | ||
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| Normal: "I'd be happy to help! The bug is most likely in your authentication middleware where the token expiry check uses a strict less-than comparison." | ||
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| Caveman (full): "Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check uses `<` not `<=`. Fix:" | ||
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| Caveman (ultra): "Auth bug. `<` → `<=`. Fix:" | ||
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| ## Limits | ||
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| * Caveman affects assistant prose only. It does not change generated code, commit messages, or PR descriptions. | ||
| * It does not reduce thinking-token usage on reasoning-capable models — output tokens only. | ||
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| ## Attribution | ||
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| Concept based on the [Caveman project](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman) (MIT license, Copyright (c) 2026 Julius Brussee). This SKILL.md is an original specification authored for hve-core; no upstream files are redistributed. | ||
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| > Brought to you by microsoft/hve-core | ||
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| 🤖 Crafted with precision by ✨Copilot following brilliant human instruction, then carefully refined by our team of discerning human reviewers. | ||
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| Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change |
|---|---|---|
| @@ -0,0 +1 @@ | ||
| ../../../../.github/skills/experimental/caveman |
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| Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change |
|---|---|---|
| @@ -0,0 +1 @@ | ||
| ../../../../.github/skills/experimental/caveman |
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Maybe not best field. Me think
skill_based_onstructural template. Me thinkcontent_based_onmaybe more gooder because caveman skill content concept.