cavekit

compressed spec-driven development for claude code
_{one file · three commands · zero sub-agents}

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what this is

Plan-then-execute forgets. SDD remembers — but most SDD frameworks bury that value under agent swarms, dashboards, and ceremony that costs more tokens than it saves.

Cavekit 4 is a rewrite from the ground up. It keeps only what earns its place:

• durable spec — SPEC.md at repo root survives context resets.
• caveman encoding — ~75% fewer tokens than prose. Symbols, fragments, pipe tables for repeating records.
• backprop reflex — every test failure becomes a §B entry; classes of bug become §V invariants the spec never forgets.

That's the whole pitch.

commands

cmd	job
/ck:spec	create / amend / backprop SPEC.md. Sole mutator.
/ck:build	native plan → execute against spec. Auto-backprops on failure.
/ck:check	read-only drift report. Lists §V / §I / §T violations.

install

One line, via the skills CLI — installs commands and skills together:

npx skills add JuliusBrussee/cavekit

Drops /ck:spec, /ck:build, /ck:check into ~/.claude/commands/ and the caveman + backprop skills into ~/.claude/skills/. Claude Code picks them up on next launch.

Or via the Claude Code marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add juliusbrussee/cavekit
/plugin install ck@cavekit

Or clone directly:

git clone https://github.com/juliusbrussee/cavekit.git ~/.claude/plugins/cavekit

format

See FORMAT.md. Fixed sections: §G goal, §C constraints, §I interfaces, §V invariants, §T tasks (pipe table), §B bugs (pipe table).

files

FORMAT.md             spec schema + caveman encoding rules
commands/             three markdown command prompts
skills/caveman        encoding skill
skills/backprop       bug → spec protocol (six steps)

non-goals

• no sub-agents. Main Claude does the work.
• no dashboards. cat SPEC.md is the dashboard.
• no parallel workers. One thread, one spec, one diff.
• no JSON / YAML spec bodies. Markdown + pipe tables.
• no hooks, no orchestration binaries, no TypeScript helpers.

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older cavekit (the Hunt lifecycle, v3.1.0 and earlier)

The previous generation is not deprecated — it is frozen at tag v3.1.0 and remains a fully working plugin.

What it is:

Spec-driven AI development with an autonomous execution loop. Four-command Hunt lifecycle (/ck:sketch → /ck:map → /ck:make → /ck:check), plus /ck:ship, /ck:review, /ck:revise, /ck:status, /ck:design, /ck:research, /ck:init, /ck:config, /ck:resume, /ck:help — 16 slash commands total. 12 named sub-agents. Per-task token budgets, stop-hook state machine, model-tier routing, auto-backpropagation from test failures, tool-result caching, Codex peer review, Karpathy behavioral guardrails, caveman token compression, knowledge-graph integration, and design-system enforcement. Parallel wave execution and team mode.

Pick v3.1.0 if you want the full autonomous loop, parallel agents, peer review, or design-system workflow. Pick v4 if you want the distilled core — one spec, three commands, no orchestration.

install the older version

Marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add juliusbrussee/cavekit@v3.1.0
/plugin install ck@cavekit

Git:

git clone -b v3.1.0 https://github.com/juliusbrussee/cavekit.git

Full docs live at the tag — git checkout v3.1.0 and read the README there for command reference, skill catalog, and the Hunt lifecycle guide.

choosing, or moving

See UPGRADE.md. Honest framing:

• Stay on v3.1.0 if your project has active context/kits/ investment.
• Move to v4 if you want fewer moving parts and smaller token bills.
• It is a two-way door — SPEC.md is plain markdown; nothing traps you in either direction.

philosophy

The spec is the only artifact that earns its tokens. Everything else that costs tokens must either save more tokens later, or the user's attention, or it gets cut.

See CHANGELOG.md for the full v3 → v4 break.

license

MIT.