Tunable response-shortening for Claude Code. Trims filler from prose to save 30–55% on output tokens — with auto-clarity exceptions for security, errors, and destructive confirmations.

/ashlr-brief is a tunable, opt-in skill that trims Claude's prose output. Code blocks, error messages, file paths, and destructive-action confirmations stay in full grammar at every level.

Inspired by Julius Brussee's caveman (~14k stars), but designed to remain readable in PRs and code reviews — full grammar at the default level, no telegraphic "caveman voice" unless explicitly opted into via concise.

Quick start

/ashlr-brief on              # default level: standard
/ashlr-brief on concise      # max compression
/ashlr-brief off             # disable
/ashlr-brief status          # show current level + active source

Intensity levels

Level	Output reduction	Effect
`lite`	~25–35%	Drop filler ("just", "really"), keep full grammar
`standard` (default)	~35–45%	Drop filler + transition padding, keep complete sentences
`concise`	~50–60%	Sentence fragments, arrows for causality, abbreviations OK in prose

Auto-clarity exceptions

The brief level is automatically suspended for these contexts (full grammar restored just for that response):

Destructive actions (rm -rf, git reset --hard, force-push, DROP TABLE)
Security findings (credentials, vulnerabilities, RLS, XSS/SQLi)
Multi-step migrations and breaking-API rollouts
Error messages and stack traces
Code blocks, diffs, file:line citations
The first response of a session

Activation methods

Slash command — /ashlr-brief on standard
Natural language — Claude responds to "be brief", "tldr", "less tokens", "stop being brief"
Eco mode — /ashlr-eco-mode on auto-activates standard if no level is set

The active level persists across sessions in ~/.ashlr/brief.json and is re-injected on every SessionStart.

Pro/Team — project-level enforcement

Pro and Team users can write .ashlr/brief.json to the repo root with --project:

/ashlr-brief --project standard

Committing this file pins the brevity level for every contributor's Claude — useful for teams that want consistent PR descriptions and code-review tone. Free users can still set their own user-level preference in ~/.ashlr/brief.json but cannot enforce it project-wide.

Status line

While active, the status line shows brief: <level> so the level is always visible:

session +12K · lifetime +2.1M · brief: standard · tip: ...

Real-data evaluation

Reduction claims are backed by scripts/brief-eval.ts — a three-arm comparison (verbose / brief / "be terse" raw control) that prevents conflating skill-driven compression with generic brevity.

bun run scripts/brief-eval.ts --level concise --out eval.json

The script exits non-zero in CI if reduction targets aren't met or correctness sentinels fail.

/ashlr-brief