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caveman-evidence-review

juliusbrussee/caveman

Read-only review of Caveman Cloud evidence: costs, Cave Score, workflows, traces, and LLM spend optimization.

What is caveman-evidence-review?

Review Caveman Cloud observability data to understand LLM costs, optimization savings, and performance traces. Use this skill when analyzing where spend goes, evaluating optimization impact, or investigating cost drivers and latency issues.

  • Load Caveman project context and establish baseline cost, score, and workflow reports
  • Search and filter traces by workflow, model, provider, error code, latency, and cost bounds to isolate cost drivers
  • Inspect representative traces for metadata, token counts, cache state, applied optimizers, and model routing
  • Compare suspect cohorts against control cohorts or earlier time windows to test explanations
  • Separate measured provider cost, inferred daily headroom, and verified ledger savings in reports

How to install caveman-evidence-review

npx skills add https://github.com/juliusbrussee/caveman --skill caveman-evidence-review
Prerequisites
  • Caveman Cloud account with login credentials (run `caveman login` if needed)
  • Active Caveman project selected in context (run `caveman cloud projects list` to view)
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How to use caveman-evidence-review

  1. 1.Run `caveman_context {}` via MCP or `caveman cloud whoami` to confirm login and project selection
  2. 2.Request a specific report type: overview, costs, score, workflows, or verified_savings using `caveman_report`
  3. 3.Use `caveman_trace_search` to filter traces by workflow, model, provider, time window, or cost/latency bounds
  4. 4.Call `caveman_trace_get` on high-signal trace IDs to inspect metadata, spans, token counts, and applied optimizers
  5. 5.Summarize findings with measured cost, verified savings, and inferred headroom kept in separate buckets

Use cases

Good for
  • Identify which workflows or models are driving the highest LLM costs in your project
  • Investigate why latency or error rates spiked during a specific time window
  • Evaluate the actual savings delivered by Caveman optimizations against baseline spend
  • Compare cost and performance across different model providers or routing strategies
  • Audit token usage and cache effectiveness for a specific agent or workflow
Who it's for
  • Engineering leads reviewing LLM spend and optimization ROI
  • DevOps and platform teams monitoring cost drivers across multiple workflows
  • Data analysts investigating performance and cost trends in production
  • Teams evaluating Caveman optimization impact before approving experiments

caveman-evidence-review FAQ

Can I start, approve, or cancel experiments from this skill?

No. This is read-only review only. Use caveman-manage for experiment lifecycle and safety gates.

What's the difference between measured cost, verified savings, and inferred headroom?

Measured cost is provider list-price; verified savings come from the ledger; inferred headroom is daily optimization potential. Keep them separate in reports.

Should I fetch full request and completion payloads when reviewing traces?

Only if the user explicitly asks for payload review. Metadata, spans, timing, models, token counts, and optimizer attribution are sufficient for default analysis.

How do I isolate the cause of high costs?

Use `caveman_trace_search` to compare a suspect cohort (e.g., one workflow or model) against a control cohort or earlier time window. Cite trace IDs and time windows; do not infer causality from a single trace.

What should I do if a report returns empty results?

Empty results indicate no current signal, not zero cost or zero risk. Name the missing signal and stop at the strongest supported statement.

Full instructions (SKILL.md)

Source of truth, from juliusbrussee/caveman.


name: caveman-evidence-review description: > Read-only review of Caveman Cloud evidence: cost, Cave Score, workflows, traces, latency, errors, routing, savings. Use when asked what Caveman found or where LLM spend goes.

Review Caveman evidence

Act as a read-only operator. Build conclusions from current Caveman data, not from repository guesses. Never start, approve, cancel, or roll back an experiment from this skill.

Hard rules

  1. Keep these buckets separate:
    • measured provider-complete list-price cost;
    • inferred daily headroom;
    • verified ledger savings;
    • evidence cost. Never add or relabel them.
  2. Do not fetch prompt, completion, tool, or artifact payloads unless the user explicitly asks for payload review. Metadata, spans, timing, models, token counts, status, and optimizer attribution are enough for the default review.
  3. Scope every read to the project selected by Caveman context. Never supply an organization id.
  4. Empty results are evidence of no current signal, not zero cost or zero risk.
  5. Cite trace ids and exact time windows used. Do not claim a cause from an aggregate alone.

Step 1 — Load context

Prefer MCP:

caveman_context {}

CLI fallback:

caveman cloud whoami
caveman cloud projects list

Stop if login or project selection is missing. Ask the user to run caveman login or select a project; never guess.

Step 2 — Establish baseline

Use caveman_report for:

  • overview
  • costs
  • score
  • workflows
  • verified_savings

Then use caveman_plan for ranked daily headroom. If question is narrow, skip unrelated reports. Read shortest set that can answer it.

CLI fallback:

caveman cloud costs
caveman cloud score
caveman cloud plan --json

State report window and basis before interpreting direction.

Step 3 — Test the leading explanation with traces

Use caveman_trace_search. Choose a bounded window and closed filters: workflow, agent, model, provider, error code, runtime mode, cache status, optimization id, status class, token/cost/latency bounds, compression, or monitor verdict.

Useful groupings:

  • workflow — find jobs driving cost or failures;
  • model — compare model mix;
  • session — isolate retry or loop behavior;
  • ungrouped — identify exact traces.

Compare a suspect cohort with a control cohort or earlier bounded window. Do not infer causality from one expensive trace.

CLI fallback:

caveman cloud traces search \
  --workflow <slug> \
  --from <RFC3339> \
  --to <RFC3339> \
  --sort total_cost_usd \
  --dir desc \
  --limit 25

Step 4 — Inspect representative traces

Call caveman_trace_get for a small number of high-signal trace ids. Inspect request and span metadata, latency, status, token counts, cache state, applied optimizers, and model route. Keep payload retrieval off.

CLI fallback:

caveman cloud traces show <trace-id> --spans

Step 5 — Report

Use this shape:

## Caveman evidence review

Scope: <project> · <from> to <to>
Measured cost: <value and basis>
Verified savings: <ledger value, kept separate>
Inferred headroom: <per-day band, kept separate>

Findings:
1. <finding> — <aggregate evidence> — traces <ids>
2. <finding> — <aggregate evidence> — traces <ids>

Unproven:
- <plausible explanation lacking a control, trace, or eval>

Next read-only check:
- <one bounded query>

Possible action:
- <proposal only; use caveman-manage for read-only lifecycle review and safety gate>

If data is missing, name missing signal and stop at strongest supported statement. Never turn a catalog subtotal into an invoice or an experiment result into verified savings.