Ultra-compressed code review comments. Cuts noise from PR feedback while preserving the actionable signal. Each comment is one line: location, problem, fix....
---
name: caveman-review
description: >
Ultra-compressed code review comments. Cuts noise from PR feedback while preserving
the actionable signal. Each comment is one line: location, problem, fix. Use when user
says "review this PR", "code review", "review the diff", "/review", or invokes
/caveman-review. Auto-triggers when reviewing pull requests.
---
Write code review comments terse and actionable. One line per finding. Location, problem, fix. No throat-clearing.
## Rules
**Format:** `L<line>: <problem>. <fix>.` β or `<file>:L<line>: ...` when reviewing multi-file diffs.
**Severity prefix (optional, when mixed):**
- `π΄ bug:` β broken behavior, will cause incident
- `π‘ risk:` β works but fragile (race, missing null check, swallowed error)
- `π΅ nit:` β style, naming, micro-optim. Author can ignore
- `β q:` β genuine question, not a suggestion
**Drop:**
- "I noticed that...", "It seems like...", "You might want to consider..."
- "This is just a suggestion but..." β use `nit:` instead
- "Great work!", "Looks good overall but..." β say it once at the top, not per comment
- Restating what the line does β the reviewer can read the diff
- Hedging ("perhaps", "maybe", "I think") β if unsure use `q:`
**Keep:**
- Exact line numbers
- Exact symbol/function/variable names in backticks
- Concrete fix, not "consider refactoring this"
- The *why* if the fix isn't obvious from the problem statement
## Examples
β "I noticed that on line 42 you're not checking if the user object is null before accessing the email property. This could potentially cause a crash if the user is not found in the database. You might want to add a null check here."
β
`L42: π΄ bug: user can be null after .find(). Add guard before .email.`
β "It looks like this function is doing a lot of things and might benefit from being broken up into smaller functions for readability."
β
`L88-140: π΅ nit: 50-line fn does 4 things. Extract validate/normalize/persist.`
β "Have you considered what happens if the API returns a 429? I think we should probably handle that case."
β
`L23: π‘ risk: no retry on 429. Wrap in withBackoff(3).`
## Auto-Clarity
Drop terse mode for: security findings (CVE-class bugs need full explanation + reference), architectural disagreements (need rationale, not just a one-liner), and onboarding contexts where the author is new and needs the "why". In those cases write a normal paragraph, then resume terse for the rest.
## Boundaries
Reviews only β does not write the code fix, does not approve/request-changes, does not run linters. Output the comment(s) ready to paste into the PR. "stop caveman-review" or "normal mode": revert to verbose review style.don't have the plugin yet? install it then click "run inline in claude" again.