@caveman-ai/cli

The caveman (alias cave) CLI. Wrap supported coding agents so their LLM traffic can use local metering and recoverable context compression:

caveman claude        # shorthand for `caveman wrap claude`; bootstraps signed runtime on first TTY run
caveman kilo          # Kilo Code CLI; `caveman kilocode` works too
caveman qwen          # Qwen Code CLI through a temporary system-settings overlay
caveman learn         # interactive local Setup Score + grouped top moves
caveman setup         # show which companion binaries are installed
caveman stats         # local dashboard: tokens, API estimates, subscription equivalents

caveman learn shows animated progress, compact result cards, and a keyboard menu for implementation, full detail, or the visual report. Use --plain for stable compact text, --all for every sink and detector id, --json for automation, or caveman learn implement [claude|codex] --prompt "<focus>" to open an agent that reviews fixes one by one. Agent path installs the existing learn guide when missing, never edits load-bearing findings, and asks before every edit.

caveman stats opens a private, offline dashboard with token history, provider and model breakdowns, cache usage, and expandable calculation receipts. Use --days 7 or --all-time, filter with --provider, --model, --agent or --auth, and export with --json. --plain prints the summary without opening a browser. API cost estimates and subscription API equivalents remain separate; unknown prices stay unavailable. Earlier segment estimates remain visible separately until new requests supply full comparison and pricing evidence. See the accounting method.

Claude Code configured for Bedrock has an explicit native Runtime lane:

CAVEMAN_WRAP_PROVIDER=bedrock \
AWS_REGION=us-east-1 \
AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK=… \
caveman wrap claude

IAM credentials (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, and optional AWS_SESSION_TOKEN) work too. Mantle remains opt-in with CAVEMAN_BEDROCK_ENDPOINT=mantle; it is a distinct Bedrock endpoint contract, not an alias for normal Anthropic traffic. Runtime uses the attributed /bedrock base; Mantle uses /bedrock/anthropic because Claude Code appends /v1/messages to its Mantle override.

When the gateway URL is managed, wrap merges exactly one x-cave-api-key: <CAVE_API_KEY> into Claude Code's documented ANTHROPIC_CUSTOM_HEADERS, preserving unrelated custom headers and replacing any stale case variant. If AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK is present, wrap also merges it as x-cave-upstream-key; otherwise a complete IAM environment is encoded as AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID:AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY[:AWS_SESSION_TOKEN]. Bearer wins when both forms are present. Runtime still uses Claude Code's documented AWS credential chain; there is no supported Runtime equivalent of CLAUDE_CODE_SKIP_MANTLE_AUTH. With neither explicit environment form, no upstream header is added, but Claude Code must still resolve a local AWS credential/profile before the managed gateway can substitute the project's stored credential. For stored-only, server-injected Claude Code auth, select the opt-in Mantle lane, whose gateway auth bypass is documented. Stale x-cave-upstream-key variants are removed so they cannot override stored credentials. Newlines and incomplete IAM pairs fail before launch.

Local Bedrock wrap never adds Caveman gateway headers and keeps the inherited AWS environment. This header-backed seam is repository-tested; a live Claude Code → AWS smoke remains a release gate. See the official custom-header reference and Bedrock gateway setup.

What this package is (and is not)

This npm package ships only the JavaScript front-end — one CLI entrypoint plus a lazy 25 KB interactive-learn chunk, with zero runtime dependencies. The heavy lifting (compression, metering, streaming recovery, browsing) runs in caveman's companion Go binaries:

| Binary | Powers | |---|---| | caveman-proxy | start · wrap · stats — local compression + truthful metering | | caveman-engine | compress · shrink · retrieve · toon · evals | | caveman-mcp | agent-side recovery so streaming requests can compress | | cavemem | local remember · recall · learned-context offload | | caveman-browse | compressed page snapshots (optional) | | caveman-shrink | tools compress catalog — tool-schema compression, lint, and recovery (optional) |

Two shrink surfaces stay explicit: caveman tools shrink -- <command> compresses command output; caveman tools compress catalog [lint|recover] delegates to caveman-shrink for MCP/OpenAI tool catalogs.

On first interactive local wrap, caveman <agent> installs signed runtime bundle and continues same command. Explicit CAVEMAN_*_BIN overrides and non-interactive runs stay unchanged. Without binaries CLI degrades affected commands to explicit pass-through: nothing is compressed, savings report 0, and warning says why. Run caveman setup to see what works and how to repair missing pieces.

wrap is the one exception to "pass-through": it points the agent's ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL/OPENAI_BASE_URL at the proxy, so with no proxy listening the agent's requests fail to route rather than passing through. An interactive wrap catches this and offers to launch the agent directly instead; a non-interactive wrap prints the warning and still launches, so scripted/CI callers must ensure the proxy is up (or use --no-proxy).

Getting the binaries

Normal install:

npm i -g @caveman-ai/cli
caveman claude

First interactive wrap downloads key-signed release artifacts, verifies the checksum manifest plus every SHA-256, installs atomically into ~/.caveman/bin, then launches the agent. Manual install/repair is caveman setup --install.

On Claude Code and Codex, the first caveman <agent> run (or caveman enable <agent> on an existing install) also writes the voice skills (caveman, ultracave, megacave) into the agent's user skills directory, so /caveman is available. An existing SKILL.md is never overwritten, and caveman disable <agent> leaves the skills in place.

The npm CLI requires Node.js 22.13 or newer. Caveman exposes ten native agent shortcuts: aider, claude, codex, gemini, hermes, kilo (kilocode alias), openclaw, opencode, pi, and qwen.

Install Qwen Code separately, then launch it through Caveman:

npm i -g @qwen-code/qwen-code
caveman qwen

Qwen wrapping deep-merges the local or managed OpenAI-compatible route into a temporary system-settings file selected through QWEN_CODE_SYSTEM_SETTINGS_PATH. An explicit existing system-settings path wins; otherwise Caveman starts from Qwen's macOS, Linux, or Windows enterprise platform default. It preserves unrelated policy and provider keys and never rewrites that source or ~/.qwen/settings.json. Pinned real-CLI smokes cover Qwen Code 0.22.3 in local and managed modes.

Install agent-side recovery into Qwen's user settings separately:

caveman tools mcp install qwen --server caveman
caveman tools mcp uninstall qwen --server caveman

The MCP lifecycle preserves sibling entries, journals Caveman ownership, and refuses to overwrite or remove a user-owned or subsequently changed entry.

Contributors may still build from source with ./scripts/install-local-cli.sh on macOS/Linux or pwsh -File scripts/install-local-cli.ps1 on Windows. Lookup order: CAVEMAN_*_BIN env override → PATH → ~/.caveman/bin.

Honesty rules

• Local savings are always labeled inferred; verified_savings stays 0 until an optimizer runs in active mode on real traffic.
• Recoverable compression: lossy transforms store original before replacement. Missing safe recovery path, parse failure, or non-smaller output passes through unchanged and claims nothing. record mode is byte-preserving.

Connected verbs (login, plan, score, costs, …) talk to Caveman Cloud over HTTP and need no binaries.

For a customer-owned installation, connect to its API origin:

caveman login --instance https://caveman.example.com

Approve the displayed code in your instance's browser, choose a project and grant its access scopes. This connection creates no inference key and does not sync local request history. The CLI's usage telemetry setting remains in effect; caveman telemetry off disables it. Credentials use the existing secure store; caveman logout revokes the session. HTTPS is required except for HTTP loopback development. Hosted login remains unavailable during beta.

Read agents in the connected project with caveman cloud agent factory list and caveman cloud agent factory show <id>. These commands need trace:read_metadata access. Factory cases, execution approvals and policy remain in the dashboard; the CLI connection cannot grant that authority. The existing cloud agent list|show|run commands still address optimization proposals.

Connected telemetry imports stay under existing cloud audit governance verb:

caveman cloud audit import --format langfuse traces.json
caveman cloud audit eval-import evidence.jsonl --dry-run
caveman cloud audit eval-import evidence.jsonl

Eval JSONL accepts one canonical external-evidence object per line, at most 1,000 records / 4 MiB per batch. Server stamps org/project, observed basis, and external_observed authority; imported evidence cannot approve rollout or mint verified savings.

Agent-native setup

Install complete native Caveman integration into Codex or Claude Code: local routing, lifecycle hooks, architecture-first Core, recovery MCP, project-scoped read tools, and setup/discovery/review/optimization/management skills:

caveman setup --agent-native codex
# or
caveman setup --agent-native claude

This writes an MCP command, not an access token, into the agent config. Runtime requests use the existing caveman login credential store and still pass through control-api authentication, project scope, RBAC, audit, and tenant isolation. Read tools expose structured reports, Cave Plan, trace metadata/spans, and experiment evidence. Agent MCP intentionally exposes no lifecycle mutation: control-api needs server-authoritative transition and evidence gates first. Agent-facing CLI experiment commands are read-only for same reason.

Core changes coding behavior but remains independently controllable. Compression, recovery, and telemetry continue when Core is off:

caveman tools config get think.core
caveman tools config set think.core off
caveman tools config set think.core on

Run caveman doctor codex or caveman doctor claude to see active Core state, source, profile, and pack version. Changes affect later hook events; start a new agent session to clear Core already delivered into model context. Aider's shallow, static Core read cannot apply think.core; caveman disable aider removes it. caveman disable (or caveman disable --all) removes all native integrations. caveman disable claude clears every discovered Claude profile: the default, named ~/.claude-* / ~/.claude_* profiles, CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, and custom profiles remembered by earlier enables. It also removes recognizable Caveman runtime entries left behind without an install journal, backing up changed files first. Unrelated routes, credentials, hooks, and MCP servers are preserved. Restart running Claude sessions afterward: disable cannot change their existing process environment. Arbitrary custom profiles created by older versions must be supplied through CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR if they are outside the named locations. caveman disable <agent> removes native routing/hooks while preserving unrelated host edits.

Agent-native setup preflights host/runtime requirements before writes, journals bundle ownership, validates installed components, and rolls back failed installs. Rerunning converges journal-owned drift. Remove only bundle-owned pieces and restore prior skill/MCP bytes with:

caveman setup --agent-native codex --remove

Inspect before install:

caveman tools skills list --json
caveman tools skills preview caveman-evidence-review
caveman tools skills install --suite agent-native --agent codex --no-pixel
caveman tools mcp install codex --server caveman-cloud

Install any third-party skill through the official Skills CLI, then store its instruction body as profitable pixel pages automatically:

caveman tools skills add mattpocock/skills --skill tdd --agent codex -y
caveman tools skills add https://github.com/vercel-labs/agent-skills --agent claude-code --global -y

GitHub shorthand, Git/GitLab URLs, direct skill URLs, local paths, and upstream --skill/--agent/--global/--list/--all flags pass through unchanged. Caveman forces upstream copy mode when pixelizing, converts only new or changed Claude Code/Codex skills, keeps SKILL.orig.md for byte-exact revert, and reports measured estimated-token reduction as inferred per invocation. --no-pixel keeps upstream plain-text behavior. Third-party instructions and resources are installed as supplied; Caveman does not security-review them. Official Skills CLI telemetry behavior also applies; set DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 to opt out upstream.

Dated local smoke on Matt Pocock's 35-skill repository converted 27 profitable skills and left eight safely as text. Sum across one invocation of each converted skill: 32,314 → 9,537 estimated tokens (−70% inferred). This is estimator output, not provider-reported billing or a skill-quality benchmark.