Headroom open-sources a local-first way to cut agent token use by up to 95%
eyishazyer · x · 2026-07-23
Headroom compresses agent context to cut token use by 60–95%
An ex-Netflix engineer has open-sourced Headroom under Apache 2.0, a local-first repository that compresses everything an agent reads before sending it to the model.
- It targets tool outputs, long logs, RAG chunks, files, code, and conversation history.
- The author claims it can reduce JSON token usage by 60–95% and coding-agent tokens by about 15–20%.
- It keeps original files on your machine and lets the agent fetch them again when needed.
- It can plug into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Aider, and Copilot via a library, proxy, or MCP server.
- Reported benchmarks say accuracy was preserved on tasks like GSM8K and TruthfulQA.
More from coding & agent
- Cheaper OpenAI Agents API alternative: sandbox service undercutting E2B by 46% — airesearch12 · 2026-09-11
- His agent kill switch ran for months before he found it was wired to nothing — AnvilandCode · 2026-09-11
- Kernel's Browser Agents Can Now Pay Online Using Aliases, Never Touching Card Data — jeff_weinstein · 2026-09-11
- OpenAI opens up agent sandboxes: BYO or pick from Cloudflare, E2B, Modal, Vercel and more — threepointone · 2026-09-11
- SocialCrawl MCP lets agents search Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, X with one API key — dooddyman · 2026-09-11
- Astra builds a surprisingly polished Catan game in three.js, reusing past UI and 3D assets — FinanceYF5 · 2026-09-11