Everyone's talking about "Caveman" — the tool that cuts 75% of your AI tokens.

Joel Shane — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 06:18:26 +0000

Spoiler: it's more like 4%.

And honestly? That's still kind of impressive when you understand why.

I've been using Claude Code heavily, and like most of you, I'm always looking for ways to keep costs down. So when Caveman started trending — a tool that makes Claude respond like a caveman to slash token usage — I had to dig into the actual numbers.

Here's what a typical 100K token session actually looks like:

75,000 tokens are inputs. File reads, grep results, tool outputs, your conversation history. Caveman doesn't touch any of this. It can't.

25,000 tokens are outputs. But most of that is tool calls (10K) and code blocks (9K) — both of which have to be written correctly. Caveman leaves those alone too.

What's left? Prose responses. About 6,000 tokens. The conversational fluff — "Sure, I'd be happy to help!", "The reason this is happening is because..." — that's what Caveman compresses.

Cut that by 65% and you save ~4,000 tokens.

4,000 out of 100,000 = 4%.

So is Caveman useless? Honestly, no — and I say that as someone who just spent way too long doing token math to prove a point.

It's oddly satisfying. Responses feel faster. There's something weirdly fun about an AI that just says "bug here, fix this, done."

But 4% is 4%. Not 75%.

Sometimes the hype is the feature. This might be one of those times.

Here is how exactly you can test it

(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ssSyVbJ_KPcsv3PZVJrjfYOBg_AHHrww8Ve1VC6CLkw/edit?usp=sharing)

I built an app to fix how families coordinate care for elderly relatives

Joel Shane — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:31:44 +0000

The problem I kept seeing

Picture a typical family caring for an elderly parent at home. There's a paid morning carer, an afternoon family member, and an occasional nurse. Three people, different shifts, different days — and zero shared record of what happened.

Every handover is a rushed phone call or a voice note buried in a WhatsApp thread. Critical things slip through — a medication given twice by accident, a dizziness episode no one mentioned, a doctor's instruction that never reached the next carer.

Before CareLink

WhatsApp chains mixing casual chat with care notes
Paper diaries that only one person reads
"Did she take the pill?" — no one knows
Family finds out something went wrong days later
Every carer has their own system

With CareLink

One shared log everyone reads and writes in
Log an entry in under 15 seconds
Urgent alerts surface instantly to all carers
Medication confirmed given — no more doubt
Formal handoff at shift end, every time

Feature 1 — The daily log

The daily log is the whole product. Every other feature exists to support it. Any carer on the team can add an entry in under 15 seconds — no mandatory fields, no complicated forms.

There are 8 entry types to choose from: Medication, Meal, Mood, Symptom, Activity, Doctor Visit, Note, and Handoff. Each has its own colour, icon, and smart field hints.

Home Dashboard

Add new entry

Tapping the urgent flag on any entry sends an alert to every carer on the team. A red banner appears at the top of the home screen for everyone until the issue is noted — so nothing critical gets missed between shifts.

Feature 2 — Medication tracker

Medication is the highest-stakes part of the day. CareLink has a dedicated medication tracker that removes the guesswork entirely.

Medication tracker

Feature 3 - Shared team log, real-time

Every carer on the team sees the same log. When someone adds an entry, it appears on everyone else's screen within seconds — no manual refresh, no out-of-date information.

What I'd love to hear from you

I'm sharing this because I want perspectives from people I haven't spoken to yet. Here's what would genuinely help:

If you've ever been part of a care team — does this match the pain you felt?
Is there something missing that would make this a "must have"?
Would you trust an app like this with health information about your family?

App Link - https://carelink-pearl.vercel.app/

DEV Community: Joel Shane

Everyone's talking about "Caveman" — the tool that cuts 75% of your AI tokens.

I built an app to fix how families coordinate care for elderly relatives