ck

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:

npx skills add JuliusBrussee/cavekit

Installs five skills into ~/.claude/skills/: spec, build, check (the workflow) plus caveman and backprop (the utilities). Claude activates each when its trigger context matches — e.g. "write a spec for…" invokes spec, "build the next task" invokes build. Claude Code picks them up on next launch.

Or via the Claude Code marketplace (also adds /ck:spec, /ck:build, /ck:check slash commands):

/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 slash-command entry points (/ck:spec, /ck:build, /ck:check)
skills/spec           spec mutator (mirrors commands/spec.md as a skill)
skills/build          plan-execute skill (mirrors commands/build.md)
skills/check          drift report skill (mirrors commands/check.md)
skills/caveman        encoding utility
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.

ecosystem

Cavekit is one rock in the caveman family: