UsageTrim

A local CLI and MCP server for compacting verbose test and build output. Filters use format-specific rules to retain diagnostic context; cached output is recoverable after recognized secrets are redacted, while the entry remains stored. Integrations are available for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Claude Desktop; the macOS companion is optional.

Install

Requires Python 3.11+ and uv (pipx works too).

uv tool install git+https://github.com/00200200/usagetrim
usagetrim demo

Try without installing: uvx --from git+https://github.com/00200200/usagetrim usagetrim demo.

Add it inside your app

Plugins run the pinned release wheel through uvx, so they need uv on PATH. The .mcpb extension installs its own copy through Claude Desktop.

verbose tool text  →  keep the failure  →  recover the rest by reference

Related MCP server: Concisr

See it cut

usagetrim demo runs authored fixtures with no model calls. It checks failure retention and exact recovery for those fixtures, which contain no recognized secrets. These checks do not guarantee preservation of every diagnostic in arbitrary output.

Local o200k_base estimate — not billing, quality, or subscription-limit claims. Full matrix: usagetrim demo --json.

usagetrim run -- pytest -v
usagetrim run -- docker build -t app .
usagetrim run -- docker compose logs
usagetrim run -- cargo test
usagetrim run -- go test ./...
usagetrim run -- kubectl describe pod api-7d8f9c-xk2m9
usagetrim run -- terraform plan
usagetrim run -- npx eslint . --format codeframe

What you get

• Compact supported MCP text formats. The Claude Code hook rewrites results from other MCP servers: uniform JSON rows become TSV with the keys once, {"result": "…"} wrappers lose their escaping, and indentation goes. The rewrites target supported JSON shapes and preserve recognized <untrusted-data-…> delimiters and surrounding warnings; they do not provide a prompt-injection defense. Measured below.

• Focused helper agents. The plugin adds scout (read-only search) and runner (tests and builds, failures only) agents on Haiku. usagetrim install --cheap-explore configures Claude Code's built-in Explore to use Haiku. /output-style usagetrim:lean trims reply preambles and recaps.

• Compose logs. docker compose / docker-compose / podman compose / podman-compose up and logs fold repeated successful healthchecks, HTTP health polls and Redis heartbeats per service. Unknown lines, errors and exit events remain intact. Before every exit, the last ten lines of every observed service are preserved: even an exact name match can refer to another service's container. This deliberately favors crash context over maximum compression when project or custom container names are ambiguous. ANSI-decorated or other unrecognized formats are left unchanged; no Docker/Podman daemon is needed by the filter.

• Cut noise, keep the failure. Specialized filters for pytest, Docker, cargo, go, vitest, eslint, tsc, mypy, pyright, kubectl, terraform/tofu plan|apply|destroy, GitHub Actions / GitLab CI log folding (gh run view --log-failed, glab ci trace), uv sync/uv add, git diff, ruff…

• Session dedup + spill. Same run output or identical cat / MCP usagetrim_read view within ~15 minutes → short cache ref. Payloads over ~20 KiB → file + preview (USAGETRIM_SPILL_BYTES).

• Recover by reference. usagetrim retrieve tc_… returns cached text after recognized secrets are redacted. Cache entries can be evicted when the size budget is exceeded, pruned, or cleared; references are not permanent backups. Redaction uses patterns and may miss sensitive content.

• Measure it. usagetrim gain / MCP usagetrim_gain — per-tool-family savings and passthrough candidates (local estimates, not account quotas).

• Desktop-ready. MCP for Claude Code / Codex / Cursor / Claude Desktop; Prepare-for-chat clipboard flow; optional macOS pet.

usagetrim gain                 # summary + by tool family + passthrough tips
usagetrim gain --history       # same tables + recent Raw→Compact / Saved rows
usagetrim gain --passthrough   # near-zero cuts only (specializer candidates)
usagetrim prepare --file draft.txt

Details and tradeoffs →

Measured on real sessions

Maintainer-reported results from 14 days of Claude Code transcripts, replayed offline through the same functions the hook runs. Token counts are local o200k_base estimates, not billing; the private transcripts are not included as a public benchmark dataset.

All 3,144 SQL results rewritten as TSV decoded back to the original rows (reproduce on your own transcripts: uv run python scripts/replay_mcp_transcripts.py). Browser and page-text tools return prose and were left alone. Bash output in the same sessions was mostly ad-hoc scripts, where the filters saved under 1%. Test and build logs are where the Bash filters pay off, so results depend on what your tools print.

How it fits

UsageTrim sits on the tool path (CLI wrapper, MCP, Prepare-for-chat). It does not intercept or rewrite the chat stream. Its filters aim to retain failure details while reducing repetitive output; inspect the cached text when the compact view is insufficient.

Same CCR idea as peers (compress → cache → retrieve). Differentiation is specialized cutters, session dedup, spill-to-file, and Desktop/MCP install paths — not a claim that we beat RTK/snip/headroom on every workload.

Connect your agent

Desktop & Coding profiles: 11 and 9 tools respectively, compared with 16 in the full profile, with shorter schema descriptions. Schema token counts depend on the release, serialization, and tokenizer; smaller schemas do not guarantee lower per-turn usage.

# One-command installer for Codex & Claude Desktop
usagetrim install --codex            # configures ~/.codex/config.toml
usagetrim install --claude-desktop   # configures Claude Desktop MCP
usagetrim install --mcpb             # Extension manifest for one-click packaging
usagetrim install --all              # configures all at once

For Claude Code CLI:

claude mcp add --scope user usagetrim -- usagetrim mcp --profile coding
# or, without installing first:
claude mcp add --scope user usagetrim -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/00200200/usagetrim usagetrim mcp

Manual MCP configuration for Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "usagetrim": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/usagetrim",
      "args": ["mcp", "--profile", "desktop"]
    }
  }
}

Path: command -v usagetrim. Use --profile full for every tool, --profile coding for core terminal tools, or --profile desktop for chat apps. Client setup →

# Prepare messy logs or stack traces with prompt-cache prefix stabilization:
usagetrim prepare --desktop -f error.log

# Initialize or optimize lean, cache-aligned instructions (CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md):
usagetrim rules --init --client claude        # writes lean CLAUDE.md (~120 tokens)
usagetrim rules --init --client codex         # writes lean AGENTS.md (~120 tokens)
usagetrim rules --optimize --write -f CLAUDE.md # strips filler, aligns prompt caching

Desktop companion

Mint robot on your Mac — draggable pet or menu-bar mode. Local measurements, task memory, optional account-limit readings. English UI. No extra AI calls.

Example balances are remaining allowance — not savings caused by UsageTrim.

Prepare for chat — paste a log, preview the cut, copy into Codex / Claude Desktop. Log prep →

macOS 13+ · ad-hoc signed, not notarized. CLI and MCP work without the pet. Build →

Roadmap

Possible follow-up work, separate from the features available today:

• Ranked repo map (Aider-style PageRank over the symbol graph) fitted to a token budget.

• LSP-backed references and rename (Serena-style), falling back to the ast-grep index.

• Lossless log templating (Drain-style) for dev-server, Docker and CI logs.

• A paired A/B harness on provider-reported tokens and task pass rate, because output-size savings alone can hide extra turns.

Contributing

Lost context or an incorrect filter result? Open an issue with a small redacted input, the command, and the expected output. See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and checks.

Guide · Measurements · MIT