Caveman Commit

This does one thing well: strips the fluff from commit messages without losing the important bits. It enforces Conventional Commits format with 50-character subjects and adds body text only when the "why" isn't obvious from the diff. The auto-trigger when staging changes is handy for maintaining consistency across a project. I've seen too many commits that read like novels or say nothing useful at all. This finds the middle ground by focusing on imperative mood and actual reasoning over restating what the code already shows.

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skills.sh installs: 431.6K
GitHub stars: 118.7K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add juliusbrussee/caveman --skill caveman-commit --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Write commit messages terse and exact. Conventional Commits format. No fluff. Why over what.

Rules

Subject line:

<type>(<scope>): <imperative summary> — <scope> optional
Types: feat, fix, refactor, perf, docs, test, chore, build, ci, style, revert
Imperative mood: "add", "fix", "remove" — not "added", "adds", "adding"
≤50 chars when possible, hard cap 72
No trailing period
Match project convention for capitalization after the colon

Body (only if needed):

Skip entirely when subject is self-explanatory
Add body only for: non-obvious why, breaking changes, migration notes, linked issues
Wrap at 72 chars
Bullets - not *
Reference issues/PRs at end: Closes #42, Refs #17

What NEVER goes in:

"This commit does X", "I", "we", "now", "currently" — the diff says what
"As requested by..." — use Co-authored-by trailer
"Generated with Claude Code" or any AI attribution — unless the user's own rule requires an Assisted-by/AI-attribution trailer, then add it as a trailer
Emoji (unless project convention requires)
Restating the file name when scope already says it