Token Optimization for Claude Code

🗒️ Description

A short catalog of tools that cut token usage in Claude Code and LLM work in general. Source: a LinkedIn post aggregating 10 repos. Treat as a starting point — most are unproven, more community experiments than vetted tools. Shared logic: less context, more output — via filtering, sandboxing, compression, or structural indexes. Overlaps directly with Context Engineering and Harness Engineering.

🔗 Links

• Source: LinkedIn post (Mohammed Aboelez, 2026-04)

🧩 Tools (10)

• Caveman Claude — forces Claude to reply in a “caveman” style, cuts ~75% output tokens with no accuracy loss.
• RTK (Rust Token Killer) — Rust proxy that filters terminal output, 60–90% reduction, no dependencies.
• Code Review Graph — Tree-sitter graph, Claude reads only relevant nodes — claimed 49× reduction on large monorepos.
• Context Mode — sandboxes raw output (logs, GitHub) into SQLite instead of dumping into context; claimed 98% reduction.
• Claude Token Optimizer — a bundle of setup prompts; 90% savings on documentation (11K → 1.3K tokens).
• Token Optimizer — detects “ghost tokens” (invisible characters/duplications) eating the context.
• Token Optimizer MCP — aggressive caching and compression for MCP tools; 95%+ reduction.
• Claude Context (Zilliz) — hybrid vector search MCP, the entire codebase as context at 40% lower cost.
• Claude Token Efficient — a CLAUDE.md template that enforces terseness, zero code changes.
• Token Savior — symbol-based (AST) navigation, not file-based; 97% reduction + persistent memory.

🧩 Taxonomy (mine, organized)

• Output compression — Caveman Claude, RTK
• Context sandboxing — Context Mode, Token Optimizer MCP
• Code graph / symbol index — Code Review Graph, Token Savior, Claude Context
• Prompt / CLAUDE.md templates — Claude Token Optimizer, Claude Token Efficient
• Hygiene — Token Optimizer (ghost tokens)

☘️ Reasoning for me

• My Agentic Systems and Qamera AI Claude Code sessions regularly exceed 200k context — the most sensible bets are code graph (Token Savior, Claude Context) + CLAUDE.md hygiene (Claude Token Efficient).
• Context Mode (SQLite sandbox) fits log and GitHub API ingest scenarios perfectly — slots into Context Engineering as another layer.
• Worth verifying repos before installing — this is a LinkedIn list, not peer-reviewed.

📖 Further reading

• Context Engineering — the framework these tools plug into
• Harness Engineering — harness configuration, including hooks and MCP for cost control
• Claude Code — host platform
• Claude Code Best Practice — 69 tips
• Agent Skills — complementary context-reduction mechanism (lazy loading of skills)
• Graphify — its own code-graph approach, 71× token reduction

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