What Are the Other Skills Besides the Main Caveman Skill?

The caveman project provides eight auxiliary skills—caveman-help, caveman-commit, caveman-review, caveman-compress, caveman-stats, and the cavecrew family (investigator, builder, reviewer)—that extend the core compression mode with helpers for commits, reviews, statistics, and sub-agent delegation.

The JuliusBrussee/caveman repository is primarily known for its terse "caveman" compression mode, but it ships with a complete ecosystem of satellite skills. These additional capabilities are defined in individual SKILL.md files and activated via slash commands or natural-language triggers, allowing users to generate commit messages, review code, compress files, and delegate work to sub-agents without leaving the caveman context.

Overview of Auxiliary Caveman Skills

Each skill operates as an independent plugin that preserves caveman's token-saving philosophy—stripping filler language while preserving code, URLs, and technical terms. The skills fall into four functional categories: documentation helpers, workflow automation, analysis tools, and the multi-agent cavecrew system.

Documentation and Help Skills

caveman-help serves as the quick-reference entry point. Defined in [skills/caveman-help/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/skills/caveman-help/SKILL.md), this skill displays a card listing all available modes, triggers, and commands when invoked via /caveman-help or the phrase "caveman help".

Code Workflow Skills

Two skills handle version-control hygiene:

• caveman-commit — Generates terse conventional-commit messages (≤ 50 characters in the subject line) via the /caveman-commit trigger. The specification lives in [skills/caveman-commit/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/skills/caveman-commit/SKILL.md).

• caveman-review — Produces one-line PR comments such as L42: bug: user null. Add guard. when triggered by /caveman-review. Configuration details are in [skills/caveman-review/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/skills/caveman-review/SKILL.md).

Analysis and Optimization Skills

For performance monitoring and content compression:

• caveman-compress — Compresses natural-language files (.md, .txt, etc.) into caveman prose, reducing token count by approximately 46 percent. Trigger with /caveman-compress <file>. See [skills/caveman-compress/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/skills/caveman-compress/SKILL.md).

• caveman-stats — Reports real-time token usage and estimated savings for the current session via /caveman-stats. Documentation resides in [skills/caveman-stats/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/skills/caveman-stats/SKILL.md).

The Cavecrew Sub-Agent System

cavecrew is a decision-guide skill that spawns specialized sub-agents to keep the main context window small. Triggered by phrases like "delegate to subagent" or "use cavecrew", it orchestrates three worker agents defined under the plugins/ directory:

• cavecrew-investigator — Searches the codebase for definitions, callers, or symbol usages. Defined in [plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-investigator/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-investigator/SKILL.md).

• cavecrew-builder — Performs targeted 1–2 file edits based on investigator results. Configured in [plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-builder/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-builder/SKILL.md).

• cavecrew-reviewer — Reviews diffs and reports line-level issues with emojis and severity tags. Details are in [plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-reviewer/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-reviewer/SKILL.md).

The parent skill definition is located at [skills/cavecrew/SKILL.md](https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/blob/main/skills/cavecrew/SKILL.md).

How to Invoke Each Skill

All skills support direct command invocation. Below are runnable examples for the most common workflows:

# Display the quick-reference card

/caveman-help

# Compress a documentation file to save tokens

/caveman-compress docs/README.md

# Generate a concise commit message

/caveman-commit

# Check session token statistics

/caveman-stats

# Delegate a code search to the investigator sub-agent

delegate to subagent

# Edit a specific line range after investigation

/caveman-builder src/main.py:45-50 "replace old loop with list comprehension"

Summary

• The caveman repository ships eight auxiliary skills beyond the core compression mode.
• caveman-help, caveman-commit, caveman-review, caveman-compress, and caveman-stats provide standalone utilities for documentation, version control, and analysis.
• cavecrew orchestrates three sub-agents—investigator, builder, and reviewer—to distribute work and preserve context window.
• Each skill is implemented via a SKILL.md file in skills/ or plugins/caveman/skills/ and triggered by slash commands or natural language phrases.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I see a list of all available caveman skills?

Use the /caveman-help command or type "caveman help". This triggers the caveman-help skill defined in skills/caveman-help/SKILL.md and displays a reference card containing all modes, triggers, and file paths.

What is the difference between caveman-compress and the main caveman skill?

The main caveman skill is the default compression mode, while caveman-compress is an explicit helper skill invoked via /caveman-compress <file>. According to skills/caveman-compress/SKILL.md, it specifically targets natural-language files (.md, .txt) and reduces token count by roughly 46 percent.

When should I use cavecrew instead of the primary caveman mode?

Activate cavecrew when you need to perform multi-step operations that would otherwise bloat the context window. By saying "delegate to subagent", you spawn specialized workers—investigator, builder, or reviewer—defined in plugins/caveman/skills/, keeping the main session lean.

Where are the skill definitions stored in the repository?

Each skill resides in its own directory containing a SKILL.md file. Standalone skills live under skills/ (e.g., skills/caveman-commit/SKILL.md), while cavecrew sub-agents are located in plugins/caveman/skills/ (e.g., plugins/caveman/skills/cavecrew-investigator/SKILL.md).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "instagit@latest"]
    }
  }
}