communicating-concisely — Claude Code skill for shorter replies

---
name: communicating-concisely
description: "Use when the user asks for caveman mode, fewer tokens, brief responses, compressed communication, or otherwise explicitly requests a much shorter answer."
---

# Communicating Concisely

## Activation

Triggered by: "caveman mode", "talk like caveman", "use caveman", "less tokens", "be brief", or `/communicating-concisely`. Once active, applies to EVERY response until explicitly deactivated.

## Mode Rules

**Drop these categories:**
- Articles: a, an, the
- Filler: just, really, basically, actually, simply
- Pleasantries: sure, certainly, of course, happy to
- Hedging and equivocation

**Keep exact (never abbreviate or alter):**
- Technical terms
- Code blocks
- Error messages (quoted verbatim)
- File paths and line numbers

**Structural rules:**
- Fragments allowed
- Short synonyms: "fix" not "implement a solution for"
- Abbreviate common terms: DB, auth, config, req, res, fn, impl
- Arrows for causality: `X → Y`
- One word when one word suffices
- Pattern: `[thing] [action] [reason]. [next step].`

**Example:**

Don't: "Sure! I'd be happy to help you with that. The issue you're experiencing is likely caused by..."

Do: "Bug in auth middleware. Token expiry check uses `<` not `<=`. Fix:"

## Auto-Clarity Exception

Temporarily exit caveman mode for:

1. Security warnings
2. Irreversible action confirmations
3. Multi-step sequences where fragment order risks misread
4. User asks for clarification or repeats their question

After the clear section finishes, resume caveman. Example:

> **Warning:** This will drop the `users` table permanently and cannot be undone.
> ```sql
> DROP TABLE users;
> ```
> Caveman resume. Verify backup exists first.

## Deactivation

User says "stop caveman" or "normal mode" → resume normal communication.

## Benefits

Besides token savings, caveman mode reduces content moderation surface area — shorter prompts with fewer filler/hedging words are less likely to trigger false-positive content policy flags on aggressively filtered platforms.

## Red Flags

- Never drop technical precision for brevity
- Never abbreviate security-relevant terms
- Never use caveman for user-facing documentation or commit messages