flatten-mcp

Move the bulk out of a Claude Code session — the huge file reads, logs, and screenshots the model already digested — into a local backup, fully reversibly. On Pro/Max that means compaction fires later and the model stays sharp; on API billing it means paying for fewer tokens. Every prompt and event stays verbatim.

Most of a long session's tokens are raw source the model already distilled into prose — the 2 MB log it boiled down to one line, the screenshot it described, the five files it summarized. flatten-mcp moves that bulk into a local backup next to the session and leaves a small [FLATTENED …] marker in its place. Nothing is rewritten, nothing is summarized away; any block is one call from coming back. The whole thing is a handful of small TypeScript files with two direct dependencies — small enough to audit in one sitting.

Taste it first — nothing installed, nothing written:

npx -y flatten-mcp-session flatten --dry-run

Run it from a project you use Claude Code in: it prints the exact savings a flatten would give your most recent session and writes nothing.

Quick start

Runs through npx — no global install, nothing added to your project. Every read/write stays inside Claude Code's own session store under ~/.claude/projects/, and there are zero network calls by default. (Node ≥ 18, which Claude Code already runs on.)

1. Install — either path:

# Terminal: register the server user-wide (pinned; use @latest if you prefer auto-updates)
claude mcp add flatten -s user -- npx -y flatten-mcp@2.2.0

# Optional: the /flatten slash command
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/shayaShav/flatten-mcp/main/commands/flatten.md -o ~/.claude/commands/flatten.md

# Or as a Claude Code plugin — registers the server AND bundles /flatten in one step
claude plugin marketplace add shayaShav/flatten-mcp
claude plugin install flatten-mcp@flatten-mcp

2. Restart Claude Code (or open a new session) — an already-open session does not pick up a newly added server. Check with /mcp: flatten should be listed as connected.

3. Use it — two steps, always:

/flatten     → the session file is rewritten in place (a complete backup is written FIRST — nothing is ever lost)
/resume      → switch to another session and back; the reloaded copy is the lighter one

Until you /resume, the window you are in still holds the full pre-flatten copy in memory — nothing will look different. After it, watch the context indicator drop.

In ~/.claude.json or your project's .mcp.json:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "flatten": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "flatten-mcp@2.2.0"] }
    }
}

For development: git clone https://github.com/shayaShav/flatten-mcp.git && cd flatten-mcp && npm install, then point the config at node /absolute/path/to/dist/index.js.

Related MCP server: claude-memory-mcp

Usage

• Bare /flatten (or asking "flatten this session") targets the current session — the server identifies it from CLAUDE_CODE_SESSION_ID. Pass a UUID to target another session.

• Preview first with a dry run — "dry-run flatten this session" — nothing is written.

• Undo completely by asking to unflatten: every block returns to its exact original value.

• Don't flatten a session that is mid-generation; flatten between turns, or from a second window — which also keeps the tool schemas out of your working session entirely.

What you'll actually save

The reduction is the bulk you remove, not a fixed percentage:

• Read-heavy sessions (large files, long logs, screenshots): the demo above measured 340,071 → 132,800 tokens, a 61% cut. The more ingested bulk, the bigger the cut — base64-screenshot-heavy sessions can go higher.

• Prose-heavy sessions (little external data): savings are small — there's not much bulk to move.

A common point to reach for it is around 200k tokens; the most dramatic cuts show up at 250k–400k. It's repeatable — a re-flatten only touches bulk that arrived since the last one. The three tool schemas cost ~1,200 tokens per turn while the server is connected; one flatten of a read-heavy session removes orders of magnitude more from every later turn (207k in the demo), and the separate-window pattern above makes even that overhead zero.

Tools

In a flattened session the model sees markers like this, carrying everything needed to fetch the original:

[FLATTENED id=toolu_01AbC… tool=Read file_path=/src/server.ts | text 48213B/612L | session=2f9c… | retrieve_flattened(id,session) for raw content]

How it works

• One backup, not deletion. <session>.jsonl.bak holds the complete session fully inlined; the live file carries markers. Kept in lockstep every run (backup = unflatten(live), live = flatten(backup)).

• Crash-safe. Originals are written to the backup before bulk leaves the session, each write via atomic temp-file-and-rename — an interrupted run can't leave a half-written session.

• Self-cleaning. A full unflatten restores everything inline and deletes the backup — zero artifacts left.

• Re-flatten friendly. As the session grows, run it again; only new bulk is touched, and content added after a flatten is never lost on restore.

• Lossless. Text and base64 images are stored exactly as they appeared — unflatten_session restores byte-identical values.

• Honest numbers. Claude Code stores each tool result twice on disk but sends one to the model; reports separate diskBytesSaved from contextTokensSaved (the number that matters), estimated locally — or exact via count_tokens when you opt in with FLATTEN_COUNT_EXACT=1 (plus ANTHROPIC_API_KEY).

Details — session JSONL format, backup model, marker protocol — in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Validate the claims yourself: (1) pick a meaty session; (2) ask for a dry run and read the report; (3) /flatten for real, /resume, and watch the context indicator drop by the reported amount; (4) diff <session>.jsonl.bak against a pre-flatten copy if you kept one, then unflatten and confirm the restore is byte-identical.

Security & verification

• Provenance you can check. Every release is published from CI via npm trusted publishing (OIDC) with provenance attestations, from a signed tag — no npm token exists anywhere. Verify: npm audit signatures. Pin an exact version (as the Quick start does) and the committed package-lock.json documents the tree we test against; npx resolves the two direct dependencies' own trees at install time — audit with npm ls --omit=dev.

• File access. Confined to the session store, <CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR or ~/.claude>/projects/<encoded-project-dir>/ — rewriting session files there is the tool's entire job, always backup-first and atomic. The one exception: flatten-mcp-session retrieve --out writes a retrieved image where you tell it to.

• Network. Zero outbound calls unless you explicitly opt in to exact token counts. With both FLATTEN_COUNT_EXACT=1 and ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set — key presence alone is not enough — exactly one endpoint is ever contacted: POST api.anthropic.com/v1/messages/count_tokens (free). The request body contains the counting model id (FLATTEN_COUNT_MODEL) and a single user message holding the tool results being flattened, reduced to their text and image blocks; a second identical call counts the replacement markers. Sent only to Anthropic; the key is read from the environment and never stored or logged. There is no other outbound URL in the codebase. The optional flatten-mcp-http bin (below) accepts inbound connections when you run it — localhost by default — and makes no outbound calls.

• No telemetry, no shell, no hooks. No analytics, no spawned processes, no permission bypasses. Vulnerability reports: SECURITY.md.

Beyond Claude Code — CLI & library

The same engine ships as a terminal CLI, an in-memory library, and a Streamable HTTP server, so raw Messages API callers (any language) get the identical flatten/unflatten semantics with no MCP and no session files.

npx -y flatten-mcp-session flatten                     # most-recent session in this project
npx -y flatten-mcp-session flatten <session> --dry-run
npx -y flatten-mcp-session list
npx -y flatten-mcp-session unflatten <session>
npx -y flatten-mcp-session retrieve <session> <tool_use_id> --out shot.png

• <session>: UUID, last, "last N", current, or a keyword — same grammar as the MCP tool. Shared flags: --project-dir, --claude-dir, --json.

• Drives the exact same on-disk engine as the MCP server — ideal for cron and scripts. After a real flatten, /resume the session in Claude Code to load the lighter copy.

echo '[{"role":"user","content":"hi"}]' | npx -y flatten-mcp-cli --flatten
npx -y flatten-mcp-cli --flatten --min-size 2000 < body.json > flattened.json
npx -y flatten-mcp-cli --unflatten < flattened.json > restored.json

• --flatten prints { messages, extracted, flattenedCount, contextTokensSaved, … } — persist extracted yourself; you are the store. --unflatten restores byte-for-byte. No server, no disk, no network. Bad input → stderr + exit 1.

import { flattenMessages, unflattenMessages } from 'flatten-mcp';

const { messages, extracted, contextTokensSaved } = flattenMessages(myMessages);
// send `messages` to the API; persist `extracted` yourself — you are the store.
const original = unflattenMessages(messages, extracted);   // byte-for-byte restore

• Synchronous, never mutates input (deep-copies first). flattenRequestBody / unflattenRequestBody handle a full { system, messages, tools, … } body.

• Exact token counts (optional, async): flattenMessagesExact uses Anthropic's free count_tokens when ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set — calling the *Exact variant is the opt-in here (countExact: false forces the estimate); the FLATTEN_COUNT_EXACT variable gates only the MCP server and session CLI.

• Prompt-caching caveat: flattening earlier messages changes the cached prefix and invalidates cache_control breakpoints from that point on — flatten before establishing a breakpoint, or the cache re-write can cost more than the flatten saves in short-lived conversations.

npx -y flatten-mcp-http            # POST http://127.0.0.1:8787/mcp
npx -y flatten-mcp-http --port 3000 --host 0.0.0.0

• Serves flatten_messages / unflatten_messages — the same stateless in-memory engine as the library, callable from any MCP client or hosted registry inspector. Persist the returned extracted yourself and feed it back to restore, exactly like the library.

• The three disk tools are not exposed over HTTP: they operate on the local Claude Code session store, which does not exist wherever a remote client calls from. (On the stdio server, FLATTEN_INMEMORY_TOOLS=1 adds these two tools alongside the disk ones.)

• No auth, permissive CORS, no outbound network calls — the tools are pure functions over the request's JSON. Binds 127.0.0.1 by default; put your own proxy/auth in front before exposing it further. Note the transport cost: the conversation you flatten travels to this server and back — inside your own process, prefer the library.

FAQ

Won't Anthropic just build this in? Claude Code already clears old tool results automatically near the limit (see the table up top). Flatten is a different contract: you pick the moment, the restore is byte-identical, and the on-disk session you /resume from actually shrinks.

Will the model fetch a flattened block, or hallucinate around it? Each marker carries the id and session, and in practice the model calls retrieve_flattened when it needs raw bytes back. Deterministic recovery is always there regardless: unflatten_session re-inlines everything.

Does it need Node in my project? No — it runs through npx ephemerally and touches only Claude Code's files, not your project or toolchain.

Can a team use it? It's per-developer (each dev's local session store). Standardize by committing the mcpServers block to your project's .mcp.json, or point the team at the plugin install.

Compatibility & roadmap

• Claude Code's session store only, for now — the paths and JSONL schema are specific to it. WSL2 counts as Linux: if your Claude Code runs inside WSL2, flatten-mcp runs in the same environment and targets those sessions normally. Native Windows is untested.

• The CLI and library above are the first adapter over the shared block logic; porting to other agents means abstracting the storage seam — contributions welcome (CONTRIBUTING.md).

Configuration

Operates on the project the CLI runs in; pass project_dir on any call to target another.

Uninstall

Unflatten anything you want back inline first — a flattened session needs its <session>.jsonl.bak for retrieve_flattened/unflatten_session, and uninstalling does not remove backups. Then:

claude mcp remove flatten -s user && rm -f ~/.claude/commands/flatten.md   # terminal install
claude plugin uninstall flatten-mcp                                        # plugin install

To reclaim disk for sessions you'll never restore, delete their .jsonl.bak files from ~/.claude/projects/<encoded-project-dir>/.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — dev setup, project map, and workflow in CONTRIBUTING.md; security reports via SECURITY.md.

License

MIT © Shaya Shaviv