Governor – a Claude Code plugin to reduce token/context waste

Keep Claude Code concise, clean, and under control. Compact professional output, context hygiene, tool-output filtering, and usage telemetry for Claude Code Max users. Governor is the serious alternative to style-only token savers. It keeps the agent concise, shrinks recurring memory files, blocks noisy logs from flooding context, and adds planning guardrails for broad tasks. The installed Claude Code command namespace is still /governor:*. bash install.sh --force Restart Claude Code, then run: /governor:status /governor:audit /governor:compress CLAUDE.md Governor auto-starts in compact professional mode when the plugin is loaded. Use /governor:off to disable response compression and /governor:on to re-enable it. Heavy Claude Code users do not only burn quota on long answers. The bigger session killers are often: Governor attacks those system problems while keeping the interaction professional and readable. Small local smoke benchmarks, not universal claims. Same machine, same prompt set, Claude CLI non-interactive runs. Three technical explanation prompts, Sonnet, no tools. One project-notes.md sample from the Caveman compression fixtures. Synthetic noisy pytest -vv output with preserved failure lines. Interpretation: Caveman is excellent at style compression. Governor aims for broader quota control: compact output, recurring-context compression, noisy-tool filtering, telemetry, and retry reduction. Always-on compact mode: SessionStart and UserPromptSubmit hooks keep responses concise in every Claude Code chat. Professional memory compression: /governor:compress CLAUDE.md rewrites verbose memory files into dense prose. Protected-span safety: code blocks, inline code, paths, URLs, commands, env vars, versions, headings, tables, and warnings are preserved. Quality guard: low-savings compression is rejected and the backup is restored instead of pretending success. Tool-output filtering: noisy Bash/test/build output is summarized while preserving failure signals. Telemetry ledger: /governor:status reports blocked tokens, failures, compactions, and statusline snapshots when available. Prompt guidance: vague broad prompts get soft, non-blocking suggestions. Plan and drift guard: explicit contracts for broad builds, then scope checks with /governor:guard. Portable rule snippets: compact-mode rules for Codex, Gemini, Cursor, Windsurf, and Cline. Commands Command Purpose /governor:on Enable compact professional response mode /governor:off Disable response compression /governor:status Show usage dashboard and waste heat map /governor:audit Find bloated memory/rule files and context waste /governor:compress CLAUDE.md Compress memory files with protected-span validation /governor:full Let the next Bash command return full output /governor:plan "task" Produce an implementation contract before broad work /governor:guard Check current changes against the approved plan /governor:benchmark Explain or summarize benchmark results /governor:install-rules Copy compact-mode rules into other-agent projects Install Local Development claude --plugin-dir . One-Line Local Install bash install.sh --force Install From This Repository gh repo clone 0xhimanshu/governor cd governor bash install.sh --force Install Rule Files For Other Agents bash install.sh --project /path/to/project --agents all Supported rule snippets: Other agents get compact professional behavior only. Claude Code is the V1 target for hooks, telemetry, statusline, and Bash output filtering. /governor:compress is automatic from the user's point of view: Set GOVERNOR_ALLOW_LOW_SAVINGS=1 only if you intentionally want to keep a low-savings compression result. Governor stores a local JSONL ledger under: Prompt caching can reduce usage/cost but does not necessarily reduce context window occupancy. Governor reports those separately when Claude Code exposes the data. Use benchmarks/ for measured comparisons. Fill benchmarks/run-sheet.csv, then run: python3 scripts/compare_benchmarks.py benchmarks/run-sheet.csv Primary metrics: five-hour usage delta, peak context %, assistant output tokens, tool-output tokens blocked, failed tool calls, compactions, wall time, and task success. Helpful by default, strict only when invoked. Professional dense prose, never novelty dialect. Measure exact savings where possible. Treat 1M context as a ceiling, not a target. Keep broad planning and drift checks opt-in. Restore backups instead of accepting unsafe or low-value compression. Gotchas If hooks do not fire, /governor:status will show little or no telemetry. Existing custom statuslines are not overwritten by the installer. Compression sends file content through the active Claude Code/model workflow. Do not compress secrets or sensitive private files. Use /governor:full before a diagnostic command when you need unfiltered logs. For installed-but-inactive behavior, launch Claude Code with GOVERNOR_DEFAULT_MODE=off. Contributing Contributions are welcome when they make G

Governor – a Claude Code plugin to reduce token/context waste

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Governor – a Claude Code plugin to reduce token/context waste

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