promptpack 0.1.2

Pack any project folder into a compact, AI-readable XML snapshot — strip noise, keep signal, cut context by ~50%

promptpack

Pack any project folder into a compact, AI-readable XML snapshot.
Strip noise. Keep signal. Cut your context window usage by ~50%.

---

What is promptpack?

When you paste an entire codebase into an AI prompt, you waste most of your context window on blank lines, comments, docstrings, and repeated path prefixes. promptpack solves this by scanning your project and producing a single .promptpack.xml file that contains everything the AI needs — nothing more.

What it does:

• Strips all comments, docstrings, and blank lines from source files
• Minifies JSON files to single-line
• Groups files by directory to avoid repeating path prefixes
• Renders the directory tree using compact Unicode box-drawing characters
• Skips irrelevant files: node_modules, dist, tests, docs, lock files, binaries, .env secrets, changelogs, licenses, and more
• Respects .gitignore patterns automatically

Typical result: ~50% reduction in token count compared to pasting raw source files.

---

Install

pip install promptpack

Requires Python 3.8 or higher. No external dependencies.

---

Quick start

# Pack a project folder next to it
promptpack my-app

# Pack a project anywhere using its path
promptpack ./path/to/my-app

# Custom output path
promptpack my-app -o context.xml

# Print to stdout (pipe into clipboard, etc.)
promptpack my-app --stdout

# macOS: copy directly to clipboard
promptpack my-app --stdout | pbcopy

After running, paste the contents of my-app.promptpack.xml into your AI prompt:

Here is my full project snapshot:

[paste contents of my-app.promptpack.xml]

Now help me...

---

Output format

The output uses compact abbreviated XML tags to minimize token usage:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<proj n="my-app" files="23" tokens="~4800">
<tree>├─package.json
├─tsconfig.json
└─src/
  ├─index.ts
  ├─app.ts
  └─utils/
    ├─helper.ts
    └─types.ts</tree>
<f p="package.json" l="json">{"name":"my-app","version":"1.0.0","scripts":{"dev":"ts-node src/index.ts"}}</f>
<d p="src">
<f n="index.ts" l="ts">import {createApp} from './app'
const app = createApp()
app.listen(3000)</f>
</d>
</proj>

Tag reference

Tag	Attribute	Meaning
<proj>	n	project name
<proj>	files	total file count included
<proj>	tokens	estimated token count of packed content
<tree>	—	directory structure with box-drawing chars
<d>	p	directory path (groups files to avoid path repetition)
<f>	p	file path (top-level files)
<f>	n	file name (files inside a <d> block)
<f>	l	language identifier

Language identifiers

py js ts jsx tsx java c cpp go rs rb php
swift kt cs dart lua sh sql html css scss
json yaml toml md gql proto tf docker nix …

---

CLI options

usage: promptpack [-h] [-o OUTPUT] [--no-transform] [--keep-blanks]
                  [--no-tree] [--ignore [IGNORE ...]] [--stdout]
                  project

Flag	Description
project	Folder name or path to pack
-o, --output	Custom output file path
--no-transform	Skip all minification (raw source content)
--keep-blanks	Keep one blank line between code blocks (less aggressive)
--no-tree	Omit the directory tree from output
--ignore PATTERN	Additional glob patterns to exclude
--stdout	Print XML to stdout instead of writing a file

---

What gets included vs excluded

Included by default:

• All source code files (.py, .ts, .js, .go, .rs, .java, …)
• Config files (.json, .yaml, .toml, .env.example, …)
• Build scripts (Dockerfile, Makefile, .sh, …)
• Root-level documentation (README.md)

Excluded by default:

• node_modules/, __pycache__/, .git/, venv/, dist/, build/
• tests/, test/, __tests__/, spec/, e2e/
• docs/, doc/, examples/, fixtures/, stubs/, vendor/
• Lock files: package-lock.json, yarn.lock, pnpm-lock.yaml, *.lock
• Minified files: *.min.js, *.min.css, *.map
• Binary files: images, fonts, executables, archives
• Secret files: .env, .env.local, .env.production
• Documentation text: *.txt, *.rst, CHANGELOG*, LICENSE*, AUTHORS*
• Any file over 512 KB
• All patterns listed in .gitignore

You can add extra patterns at runtime:

promptpack my-app --ignore "*.test.ts" "migrations/"

---

Minification details

Language	What gets stripped
Python	Inline # comments, docstrings ("""...""", '''...'''), blank lines
JS / TS / Go / Java / C++ / Rust / …	// line comments, /* */ block comments, blank lines
Ruby / Shell / YAML / TOML / …	# line comments, blank lines
HTML / XML	<!-- --> comments, blank lines
JSON	Reformatted to single-line with no spaces
CSS / SCSS	/* */ comments, excess whitespace between selectors
Markdown	Trailing whitespace, consecutive blank lines

---

Benchmark

Tested on Flask source (31 source files, excluding tests and docs):

	Size	Est. tokens
Raw source	349 KB	~89,400
promptpack output	173 KB	~44,200
Reduction	50.6%	50.6%

---

Programmatic usage

You can use promptpack as a library inside your own scripts:

from pathlib import Path
from promptpack.scanner import scan
from promptpack.transformer import transform
from promptpack.serializer import serialize, write

project = Path("./my-app")

files = []
for rel_path, lang, content in scan(project):
    minified = transform(content, lang)
    if minified.strip():
        files.append((rel_path, lang, minified))

xml_output, stats = serialize(project_name="my-app", files=files)

print(f"Files: {stats['files']}")
print(f"Tokens: ~{stats['output_tokens']:,}")

write(Path("my-app.promptpack.xml"), xml_output)

---

Publishing / contributing

This project is open source under the MIT license.

• GitHub: https://github.com/AchillesHubTeam/promptpack
• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/promptpack
• Issues: https://github.com/AchillesHubTeam/promptpack/issues

Pull requests are welcome.

---

License

MIT © AchillesHubTeam