Compress natural language memory files into caveman-speak to reduce input tokens.

Removes articles, filler words, hedging, and redundant phrasing while preserving all code blocks, URLs, file paths, technical terms, and markdown structure
Automatically detects file type, calls Claude for compression, validates output, and retries up to 2 times on errors
Creates human-readable backup as <filename>.original.md before overwriting the original file
Triggered via /caveman-compress <filepath> command or by asking to compress a memory file

Caveman Compress

Purpose

Compress natural language files (CLAUDE.md, todos, preferences) into caveman-speak to reduce input tokens. Compressed version overwrites original. Human-readable backup saved as <filename>.original.md.

Trigger

/caveman-compress <filepath> or when user asks to compress a memory file.

Process

The compression scripts live in scripts/ (adjacent to this SKILL.md). If the path is not immediately available, search for scripts/__main__.py next to this SKILL.md.
From the directory containing this SKILL.md, run:

python3 -m scripts <absolute_filepath>