tersify 0.3.3

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Token compression for LLM context windows

Every file you send to an LLM is 30–50% noise: comments, blank lines, null JSON fields, duplicate log lines. tersify strips all of it before the token counter starts.

$ tersify src/ --verbose
[tersify] 5 439 → 3 559 tokens  (35% saved, 1 880 tokens freed)

35% fewer tokens in standard mode. 54% fewer with --ast (signatures only). No network calls. No configuration. Deterministic output.

Install

One-liner — installs the binary and hooks into all your AI editors automatically:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rustkit-ai/tersify/main/install.sh | bash

cargo

cargo install tersify
tersify install --all   # hook into Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf (auto-detects)

Pre-built binaries — github.com/rustkit-ai/tersify/releases

How it works

Standard mode — remove the noise

tersify applies language-aware rules to strip everything that carries no information for an LLM:

// Before — 384 tokens
// Authentication middleware for the REST API.
// Validates JWT tokens issued by our identity provider.
use anyhow::{Context, Result};

/// Claims embedded in the JWT token.
#[derive(Debug, Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct Claims {
    pub sub: String,   // subject — user id
    pub exp: usize,    // expiration timestamp
    pub roles: Vec<String>, // authorisation roles
}

// Validates a bearer token and returns the embedded claims.
// Returns an error if the token is expired, malformed, or signed with the wrong key.
pub fn validate_token(token: &str, secret: &[u8]) -> Result<Claims> {
    // Decode the header first to get the algorithm
    let header = decode_header(token)
        .context("failed to decode JWT header")?;

    // Build a validation config matching the issuer requirements
    let mut validation = Validation::new(header.alg);
    validation.validate_exp = true; // always enforce expiry

    let key = DecodingKey::from_secret(secret);

    let data = decode::<Claims>(token, &key, &validation)
        .context("JWT validation failed")?;

    // Extra check: ensure the subject is non-empty
    if data.claims.sub.is_empty() {
        anyhow::bail!("token subject is empty");
    }

    Ok(data.claims)
}

// After — 228 tokens  (41% saved)
use anyhow::{Context, Result};

/// Claims embedded in the JWT token.
#[derive(Debug, Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct Claims {
    pub sub: String,
    pub exp: usize,
    pub roles: Vec<String>,
}

pub fn validate_token(token: &str, secret: &[u8]) -> Result<Claims> {
    let header = decode_header(token)
        .context("failed to decode JWT header")?;
    let mut validation = Validation::new(header.alg);
    validation.validate_exp = true;
    let key = DecodingKey::from_secret(secret);
    let data = decode::<Claims>(token, &key, &validation)
        .context("JWT validation failed")?;
    if data.claims.sub.is_empty() {
        anyhow::bail!("token subject is empty");
    }
    Ok(data.claims)
}

AST mode — signatures only

Pass --ast to go further: powered by tree-sitter, tersify parses the full syntax tree and replaces every function body with a stub. The result is a precise API surface.

// tersify src/auth.rs --ast  →  209 tokens  (46% saved)
use anyhow::{Context, Result};

#[derive(Debug, Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct Claims {
    pub sub: String,
    pub exp: usize,
    pub roles: Vec<String>,
}

pub fn validate_token(token: &str, secret: &[u8]) -> Result<Claims> { /* ... */ }
pub fn bearer_header(token: &str) -> String { /* ... */ }

Use AST mode when you want Claude to understand a project's structure without reading every implementation.

Quick start

tersify src/main.rs            # single file → stdout
tersify src/                   # entire directory
cat file.rs | tersify          # stdin
tersify src/ --verbose         # show token savings
tersify src/ --ast             # signatures only
tersify src/ --strip-docs      # also remove doc comments (///, /** */)
tersify token-cost src/        # estimate API cost

Integrate with your AI editor

All editors at once (recommended)

tersify install --all

Auto-detects Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf on your machine and hooks into all of them in one go.

tersify uninstall --all        # remove all hooks

Individual editors

tersify install                # Claude Code only
tersify install --cursor       # Cursor only
tersify install --windsurf     # Windsurf only

Claude Code — how it works

tersify registers a PreToolUse hook in ~/.claude/hooks.json. Every file Claude reads is automatically compressed before it enters the context window — no workflow changes required.

Benchmark

Real numbers — run tersify bench to reproduce locally.

Standard mode

AST mode (--ast)

What gets removed

Doc comments (///, //!, /** */) are preserved by default — pass --strip-docs to remove them too.

Supported languages

Cost estimator

tersify token-cost src/
tersify token-cost src/ --model claude

  5 439 → 3 559 tokens  (35% saved, 1 880 tokens freed)

  Model                   Provider      $/M tokens        Raw cost    Compressed    Saved/call
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  claude-opus-4.6         Anthropic         $15.00         $0.0816      $0.0534      -$0.0282
  claude-sonnet-4.6       Anthropic          $3.00         $0.0163      $0.0107      -$0.0056
  claude-haiku-4.5        Anthropic          $0.80         $0.0044      $0.0028      -$0.0014
  gpt-4o                  OpenAI             $5.00         $0.0272      $0.0178      -$0.0094
  gemini-2.5-pro          Google             $1.25         $0.0068      $0.0044      -$0.0023
  deepseek-v3             DeepSeek           $0.27         $0.0015      $0.0010      -$0.0005
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

  At 100 calls/day with claude-opus-4.6: saves $2.82/day → $84.60/month

MCP server

tersify ships a built-in MCP server for agent pipelines.

# Add to Claude Code
claude mcp add tersify -- tersify mcp

Three tools exposed: compress, count_tokens, estimate_cost.

Use as a library

[dependencies]
tersify = "0.3"

use tersify::{compress, detect};
use std::path::Path;

// Auto-detect and compress
let src = std::fs::read_to_string("src/main.rs")?;
let ct  = detect::detect_for_path(Path::new("src/main.rs"), &src);
let out = compress::compress(&src, &ct, None)?;

// AST mode
use tersify::compress::{compress_with, CompressOptions};
let out = compress_with(&src, &ct, &CompressOptions { ast: true, ..Default::default() })?;

CLI reference

tersify [FILES|DIRS]           Compress to stdout
  --ast                        Signatures only (tree-sitter)
  --strip-docs                 Also remove doc comments (///, //!, /** */)
  --type <lang>                Force content type
  --verbose                    Show token savings

tersify bench                  Benchmark all content types
tersify token-cost [FILES]     Estimate LLM API cost
  --model <filter>             Filter models by name

tersify mcp                    Start MCP server

tersify install                Hook into Claude Code
tersify install --cursor       Hook into Cursor
tersify install --windsurf     Hook into Windsurf
tersify uninstall              Remove the hook

tersify completions <shell>    Generate shell completions

--type values: rust python javascript typescript tsx go ruby java c cpp csharp php swift kotlin json logs diff text

Development

git clone https://github.com/rustkit-ai/tersify
cd tersify
cargo test           # 90 tests
cargo run -- bench   # live benchmark

MIT — made by rustkit-ai

Contributing