pi-caveman-autoload1.0.0

pi-caveman-autoload

Keeps Caveman active in Pi by putting your installed Caveman skill into a system-prompt section. Shows the selected mode in the bottom bar, survives compaction, and restores the mode when you reopen a session.

Tested with Pi 1.4.0.

Prerequisites

Install the caveman skill separately and make it discoverable by Pi. Install ultracave for ultra mode and megacave for wenyan mode.

This extension only automates activation. It does not bundle or update Caveman; you are responsible for installing and updating the skills. Without the base caveman skill, the footer shows caveman: not installed and no mode is injected.

Install and remove

pi install npm:pi-caveman-autoload

To remove:

pi remove npm:pi-caveman-autoload

If you used the old git install, remove it before installing this package:

pi remove git:github.com/ekawijayasusilo/shared_agent_setup

Never load both installations at once.

Commands and footer

/caveman [on|ultra|wenyan|off|status]

Command	Effect
/caveman on	Activate caveman. Alias: /caveman caveman.
/caveman ultra	Activate ultracave. Alias: /caveman ultracave.
/caveman wenyan	Activate megacave. Alias: /caveman megacave.
/caveman off	Disable injection.
/caveman status	Report the selected mode and configured default without changing either.
/caveman	Enable base Caveman when off; otherwise report status.

Commands start no model turn. Mode changes apply to the next prompt. Selecting an unavailable skill warns and leaves the previous mode unchanged.

The standalone phrases stop caveman and normal mode turn injection off. Matching is case-insensitive and allows surrounding whitespace and trailing ., ! or ?. Quoted phrases and mentions inside longer requests do not change the mode. The original input still goes to the model unchanged.

Footer	Meaning
caveman: on	Base Caveman selected.
caveman: ultra	Ultracave selected.
caveman: wenyan	Megacave selected.
caveman: off	Injection disabled.
caveman: not installed	Base Caveman missing or unreadable, regardless of selected mode.
caveman: ultra (missing) / caveman: wenyan (missing)	Selected variant missing or unreadable; no fallback to the base skill.

Default mode

Without a saved branch selection, the first valid default wins:

1. CAVEMAN_DEFAULT_MODE.
2. Repository config, walking upward from the session directory: .caveman/config.json before .caveman.json in each directory.
3. User caveman/config.json: under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME when set (the only user source); otherwise %APPDATA% on Windows, then ~/.config. Without %APPDATA%, Windows uses ~/AppData/Roaming before ~/.config.
4. caveman.

Config files use the defaultMode key, for example:

{ "defaultMode": "ultracave" }

The same Caveman config drives Claude Code and Codex. This extension maps values case-insensitively as follows:

Config value	Selected mode
caveman, lite, full	caveman
ultracave, ultra	ultracave
megacave, wenyan, wenyan-lite, wenyan-full, wenyan-ultra	megacave
off, manual	off
commit, review, compress	caveman (one-shot skills are not persistent modes here)

Session behavior

Mode changes are saved per session branch. Reopen, reload, fork and tree navigation restore the selected branch's mode. An explicit off stays off even if the configured default later changes. A branch without a saved selection uses the current default.

Limitations

• The footer shows what the extension sends to the model, not whether the model follows it.
• Typing /skill:caveman by hand or switching modes in plain language is not tracked. Use /caveman.
• An extension that replaces the whole system prompt with systemPrompt or forceSystemPrompt can hide the section for that run.
• normal mode also turns off other extensions that honor it, such as Ponytail.
• Never install alongside another extension that registers /caveman or uses the caveman system-prompt section.

Development

From the repository root:

cd pi-extensions/pi-caveman-autoload && npm test

From the package directory, try it without changing installed packages:

pi -e ./index.js