Caveman

JuliusBrussee/cavemanReviewed by AI

What it does

A set of add-ons for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI. It installs instructions that make the assistant answer in a clipped style, plus a local proxy that compresses logs, JSON, CSV and web pages before the model reads them, and an optional router that picks a model per question. You install it in a terminal with one npx command and Node 22.13 or newer; it then edits the settings of each assistant it finds on your machine.

How easy it is to install

C · install 1 or 2 tools · Windows

Windows C
macOS C
Linux C

C on all three: you need Node.js 22.13 or newer and a terminal, then `npx @caveman-ai/cli@latest`, which detects your assistants and changes their configuration. Windows needs PowerShell 5.1 or newer for the one-line form; the released files are command-line binaries, not an app you open.

Numbers on GitHub

Stars: 116,527on Oct 31, 2026
Downloads: 722,81884,456 this week
Growth: +1,216stars in 5 days

Stars over time

Facts

Runs on: Windows, macOS, Linux
You need to install: Node.js
To build from source: Node.js, Docker, Go
Disk space: 46 MB–137 MB · from the installer
Accounts or keys: Caveman Cloud account (for the Auto router), Your own model provider key (Anthropic, OpenAI and others)
Cost: Freemium · Apache-2.0 code, free to run. The "Auto" router needs a free Caveman account, and Caveman Cloud is a separate paid service (app.caveman.so).
License: Apache-2.0 (Permissive)
Can replace: OpenRouter, Portkey
Last update: Oct 25, 2026

Risk signals (7)

Attentionunusual star rate
116532 stars in 210 days (~555 per day)
automatic check
Attentiontelemetry on by default
README Privacy section: "The CLI sends usage stats by default: commands run, token counts, caveman-blocks commands and usage counts, a random install ID, OS, and IP", and says it is turned off with `caveman telemetry off` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1`.
AI review
Attentionprompts sent to vendor cloud when routing on
README Privacy section on Auto: "each ask sends Caveman Cloud your latest ask (with whatever your agent attaches to it, such as CLAUDE.md, memory or @-mentioned files) ... On the Free plan Caveman may keep it to improve routing", and a request routed to a Caveman Cloud model "passes through Caveman Cloud, whole (system prompt, tool results, code)".
AI review
Attentioninstaller rewrites other tools settings
INSTALL.md: the installer "Auto-detects every supported agent installed on your machine", "runs that agent's native install path (plugin / extension / rule file / `npx skills add`)" and "Wires Claude Code hooks and statusline badge on top, plus a Codex start-of-session hook" — it changes files and hooks belonging to around 30 other programs.
AI review
Infoinstall script piped from web
INSTALL.md offers `curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman/v4.0.1/install.sh | bash` and `irm ...install.ps1 | iex`, and warns in its own words: "Piping a script straight into a shell runs it sight-unseen." The scripts then run `npx -y github:JuliusBrussee/caveman#v4.0.1`, pinned to a tag the owner can move.
AI review
Infoself reported and partial benchmarks
The README's own caveats: the 33.2% session figure "is from August 2026 on an older engine", HTML came out "9.9% worse", the Auto comparison says "the run is half done" and the score gap "is too small to tell apart at this size", and the Blocks part is "Pre-release (v0.1.0-rc.5). Python only, no sandbox yet."
AI review
Inforelease binaries unsigned by github
Only the bin-v4.0.2 release carries binaries (caveman-proxy, caveman-engine, caveman-mcp, cavemem and others for all three systems); INSTALL.md says runtime binaries are "checked against a checksum list signed with a key built into the CLI", which cannot be verified from outside.
AI review

Evidence is shown in its original language.

What Radar could not check

Whether the token savings hold on your own projects and models
Whether the outside citations and blog results quoted in the README say what the README says they say
What exactly the installer changed in each assistant's configuration, and whether uninstalling restores it
What the telemetry and the Auto router send once running, since that needs watching the traffic