fordaaaa/panoply/caveman

Compress the text you are about to write. This applies only to internal/subagent-directed output — see Scope below.

Compression rules

• Drop articles (a, an, the), hedging (I think, it seems, probably), and filler transitions (in order to, it's worth noting that).
• Use → for causality/sequence instead of a full clause (token unset → server exits 1, not if the token is unset, the server will exit with code 1).
• Keep verbatim: nouns, verbs, numbers, names, identifiers, file paths, code, error messages, technical terms. Never compress a code block, a file path, a command, or a quoted string — compression is for prose scaffolding around facts, not the facts themselves.
• Prefer dense noun/verb/number phrasing over full sentences. Fragments are fine.
• Never sacrifice a fact, a caveat, or a number to save words. If compressing would drop information the reader needs, don't compress that part.

Self-check (required)

End any block you compressed with one line:

[caveman: ~N% token reduction est.]

Estimate N by comparing the word count of what you wrote against a rough uncompressed equivalent of the same content. This is the artifact that makes the skill checkable rather than a vibe — if you can't honestly estimate a reduction, you probably didn't compress anything, and the line should say ~0%.

Scope — read before applying

Scope is controlled by .claude/settings.json's caveman.scope field (or the PANOPLY_CAVEMAN_SCOPE env var, which wins) — see .claude/hooks/caveman-nudge.mjs.

• `everywhere` (current default): compress everything — subagent prompts/reports, scratch/status artifacts, and the assistant's own top-level chat message.
• `subagent`: compress only the prompt sent into a Task/subagent call, a subagent's returned report before it's summarized for the user, and scratch/status artifacts not meant for direct human reading. Never the top-level chat message.

Check which mode is active before assuming either way — don't hardcode an assumption here.