token-goat 0.4.0

Hook-based token optimizer for Claude Code on Windows, macOS, Linux, and WSL. Image shrink, re-read dedup, and compaction assist — automatic.

Cuts the tokens Claude Code, Codex CLI, opencode, and openclaw burn. Windows, Linux, WSL, and macOS. Install once, then forget it.

---

97.4% image compression  ·  85% smaller reads via surgical CLI  ·  zero ongoing maintenance

---

The problem

Claude reads auth.py. Then reads it again. Then a third time after compaction wipes the session. You pay for every token.

Long sessions accumulate waste three ways. Screenshots cross the model at full resolution. A single PNG can land at 3.3 MB. The agent re-reads files it already parsed earlier in the same conversation. And when a session compacts, the summary LLM doesn't know which files were edited or which symbols mattered, so it preserves the wrong things.

Each one is preventable. Token-Goat intercepts all three, automatically.

What changes

Without Token-Goat	With Token-Goat
3.3 MB screenshot lands in model context	84 KB compressed copy — 97.4% smaller
Agent re-reads files from earlier in the session	"Already read this" reminder with narrow slice suggestion
Compaction forgets which files were edited	Structured session manifest injected before compact
Full file read for one function or section	token-goat read file::symbol — about 85% smaller

Four hours of use on the author's machine: 59.7 MB of data that never hit the model, with an estimated 11.5 million tokens avoided.

On a per-token API plan, 100K wasted tokens per session runs about $0.30. Five sessions a week is ~$450/year. Token-goat is free.

Install

Windows requirements: Windows 10 or 11 · Python 3.11, 3.12, or 3.13 · uv (winget install astral-sh.uv)

Linux / WSL requirements: Python 3.11, 3.12, or 3.13 · uv (curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh)

macOS requirements (untested): Python 3.11, 3.12, or 3.13 · uv (curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh)

uv tool install token-goat
token-goat install

Two commands. Done. Hooks register, a background worker starts at logon and stays out of the way. No terminal popups, no tray icon, no service to babysit.

Two things change how Claude Code sessions behave: hooks fire automatically (image shrink, re-read dedup, compact manifests), and a block written to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md plus a registered skill tell the agent to prefer token-goat read / symbol / section over full-file reads. A Bash(token-goat:*) allowlist entry in settings.json lets the agent run those commands without a per-call approval prompt.

On Linux and WSL, the worker registers as a systemd user service when systemd is available. On WSL without systemd, and on macOS, the SessionStart hook ensures the worker is running at the start of every Claude Code session.

Codex CLI users

token-goat install --codex

The --codex flag patches both Claude Code and Codex CLI in one pass.

opencode users

token-goat install --opencode

The --opencode flag patches Claude Code and drops a TypeScript bridge plugin into opencode's plugins directory — one command, no separate base install. Image shrinking, post-edit indexing, and compact assist work. Session hints don't — opencode's plugin API has no way to inject context before a tool read.

openclaw users

token-goat install --openclaw

The --openclaw flag patches Claude Code and drops a TypeScript bridge plugin into ~/.openclaw/plugins/ and registers it in openclaw.json — one command, no separate base install. Image shrinking, post-edit indexing, and pre-fetch denial work. Session hints and compact assist don't — no context injection point, no compaction event.

CLI

Command	What it does
token-goat symbol <name>	Jump to a symbol definition
token-goat read "file::symbol"	Pull one function or class, not the whole file
token-goat section "doc.md::Heading"	Pull one Markdown section by heading
token-goat semantic "<query>"	Find code by meaning, not by filename
token-goat map	Get a compact orientation of the repo
token-goat stats	See how many tokens you have saved
token-goat compact-hint --session-id <id>	Inspect the compaction manifest for a session
token-goat doctor	Confirm everything is wired correctly

First token-goat semantic call downloads a small embedding model, about 130 MB, into the token-goat data directory. One-time. Offline after that.

What gets installed?

token-goat install writes the following on your machine — nothing else, anywhere. Every entry is reversed by token-goat uninstall. Run token-goat doctor at any time to see which of these are currently present.

Claude Code integration (~/.claude/)

Path	What
~/.claude/settings.json	Hook entries for SessionStart, PreToolUse (Read, Drive/WebFetch), PostToolUse (Edit/Write/MultiEdit, Read/Grep/Glob), and PreCompact. Plus a Bash(token-goat:*) permission allowlist entry. Existing hooks are preserved; a timestamped .bak is written before any change.
~/.claude/CLAUDE.md	A delimited block (<!-- token-goat-begin --> … <!-- token-goat-end -->) telling the agent to prefer token-goat read / symbol / section over Read / Grep. Any existing content is preserved.
~/.claude/skills/token-goat/SKILL.md	The token-goat skill — the same routing guidance in skill form.

Worker autostart (one of the following, picked by platform)

Platform	Entry
Windows	HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\token-goat-worker. No admin rights required.
Linux (with systemd --user)	~/.config/systemd/user/token-goat-worker.service, enabled.
Linux (no systemd, incl. WSL)	~/.config/autostart/token-goat-worker.desktop. On WSL without systemd, the SessionStart hook also starts the worker on every Claude Code session.
macOS (untested)	~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dfkhelper.token-goat-worker.plist, loaded via launchctl.

The autostart command is pythonw -m token_goat.cli worker --daemon from Token-Goat's uv tool venv. No PyInstaller-style launcher .exe is dropped; AV/EDR products do not behavior-flag this invocation pattern.

Weekly auto-update (Sunday 03:00 local time, runs uv tool upgrade token-goat)

Platform	Entry
Windows	Scheduled task token-goat-update (schtasks).
Linux / macOS	A crontab line tagged with # token-goat-autoupdate.

Data directory (created on first run)

Platform	Path
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\dfk-helper\token-goat\
Linux / WSL	~/.local/share/token-goat/
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/dfk-helper/token-goat/

Contains the symbol index (global.db, per-project .db files), session cache, shrunken-image cache, embedding model (~130 MB, downloaded on the first semantic call), logs, locks, and the dirty-file queue. Nothing outside this directory and ~/.claude/ is written.

With --codex (Codex CLI integration)

Path	What
~/.codex/config.toml	Hooks block with Codex-specific matchers (`view_image
~/.codex/AGENTS.md	A delimited block (<!-- token-goat-codex-begin --> … <!-- token-goat-codex-end -->) with the same routing guidance, adapted for Codex tool names.

With --opencode (opencode plugin)

Path	What
~/.config/opencode/plugins/token-goat.ts (Linux/macOS) or %APPDATA%\opencode\plugins\token-goat.ts (Windows)	TypeScript bridge plugin. Fires on tool.execute.before, tool.execute.after, and experimental.session.compacting. Covers image shrinking, post-edit indexing, and compact assist.

With --openclaw (openclaw plugin)

Path	What
~/.openclaw/plugins/token-goat-bridge.ts	TypeScript bridge plugin. Fires on before_tool_call and after_tool_call. Covers image shrinking, post-edit indexing, and pre-fetch denial.
~/.openclaw/openclaw.json	Plugin entry added under plugins.entries. Existing entries preserved.

Zero maintenance

After install, there is nothing to start, stop, or restart. The worker runs at logon on Windows, Linux, and macOS; on WSL without systemd, the SessionStart hook covers it. Survives reboots on every platform. token-goat uninstall reverses every change, including the startup entry.

Verify

token-goat doctor
token-goat stats

doctor confirms the install is healthy. stats shows cumulative savings.

Image support

The image-shrink pipeline relies on Pillow with WebP, JPEG, and PNG codecs. Pillow ships as a binary wheel on every platform uv supports, so a normal uv tool install token-goat puts all three codecs in place without extra steps. The instructions below are only needed if token-goat doctor reports Pillow codecs: WebP=MISSING (or similar) — that flag means Pillow was built from source against a system that did not ship the codec libraries.

Quick check (any platform):

token-goat doctor

If the Pillow codecs line reports any MISSING or FAIL, follow the platform section below.

Windows

The official Pillow wheel for Windows bundles libwebp, libjpeg-turbo, and libpng. A failing codec almost always means Pillow was reinstalled inside a stripped-down environment. Reinstall token-goat (and its bundled Pillow wheel) end-to-end:

uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat
token-goat doctor

macOS

Same story as Windows — the universal wheel ships every codec. Reinstall to get the wheel back:

uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat
token-goat doctor

If you previously installed Pillow via Homebrew with --build-from-source, install the libraries first, then reinstall:

brew install webp jpeg-turbo libpng
uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat

Linux / WSL

Almost every Linux distro pulls the manylinux Pillow wheel, which bundles every codec. The exceptions are: musl-based distros (Alpine), some ARM boards lacking a matching wheel, and environments where the user forced --no-binary :all:. In those cases, install the system headers, then reinstall:

# Debian / Ubuntu / WSL
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y libwebp-dev libjpeg-turbo8-dev libpng-dev
uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat
token-goat doctor

# Fedora / RHEL / Alma
sudo dnf install -y libwebp-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel libpng-devel
uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat

# Arch / Manjaro
sudo pacman -S --noconfirm libwebp libjpeg-turbo libpng
uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat

# Alpine
sudo apk add libwebp-dev libjpeg-turbo-dev libpng-dev
uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat

AI automated setup

Non-interactive snippets agents can run unattended. Each one is idempotent: it checks current state before changing anything, and re-runs token-goat doctor at the end so the agent can verify success from the output.

Windows (PowerShell)

# 1. Verify token-goat is reachable; reinstall if not
if (-not (Get-Command token-goat -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
    uv tool install token-goat
}

# 2. If doctor flags any image codec, reinstall the bundled Pillow wheel
$doctor = token-goat doctor 2>&1 | Out-String
if ($doctor -match 'Pillow codecs:.*(MISSING|FAIL)') {
    uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat
}

# 3. Verify
token-goat doctor

macOS / Linux / WSL (bash)

set -e

# 1. Verify token-goat is reachable; reinstall if not
command -v token-goat >/dev/null 2>&1 || uv tool install token-goat

# 2. If doctor flags any image codec, install platform packages then reinstall
need_fix=$(token-goat doctor 2>&1 | grep -E 'Pillow codecs:.*(MISSING|FAIL)' || true)
if [[ -n "$need_fix" ]]; then
    OS="$(uname -s)"
    if [[ "$OS" == "Darwin" ]]; then
        command -v brew >/dev/null 2>&1 && brew install webp jpeg-turbo libpng
    elif [[ "$OS" == "Linux" ]]; then
        if   command -v apt-get >/dev/null 2>&1; then
            sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y libwebp-dev libjpeg-turbo8-dev libpng-dev
        elif command -v dnf     >/dev/null 2>&1; then
            sudo dnf install -y libwebp-devel libjpeg-turbo-devel libpng-devel
        elif command -v pacman  >/dev/null 2>&1; then
            sudo pacman -S --noconfirm libwebp libjpeg-turbo libpng
        elif command -v apk     >/dev/null 2>&1; then
            sudo apk add libwebp-dev libjpeg-turbo-dev libpng-dev
        fi
    fi
    uv tool install --reinstall --force token-goat
fi

# 3. Verify
token-goat doctor

Stats display

token-goat stats uses 24-bit ANSI color and Unicode block characters for gradient bars, sparklines, and the activity heatmap. In the right terminal it renders sharply. In the wrong one you get broken characters, flat gray blocks, or a "rich is not installed" error.

When it's working, the output shows rounded box borders (╭─╮), gradient bars with fractional edges (▏▎▍▌▋▊▉█), sparklines (▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█), and a heatmap where cells step from dark to bright green. Question marks, boxes, or solid-color bars mean the terminal or font needs fixing.

---

Windows

The old Windows console host — cmd.exe, the legacy "Windows PowerShell" app — does not support 24-bit color. Windows Terminal does.

Step 1: Install Windows Terminal (already on Windows 11; skip if you have it)

winget install --id Microsoft.WindowsTerminal -e --silent

Step 2: Set it as the default terminal (Windows 10 only — Windows 11 handles this automatically)

Open Windows Terminal → Ctrl+, → Startup → Default terminal application → Windows Terminal → Save.

Step 3: Confirm the font

Windows Terminal ships with Cascadia Code, which covers every character token-goat uses. No additional install needed. To confirm it's selected: Ctrl+, → Profiles → Defaults → Appearance → Font face should read Cascadia Code or Cascadia Mono.

If you prefer a Nerd Font, download any variant from nerdfonts.com, install it, and select it in the font preference above.

If bars still look flat (solid single-color blocks instead of a gradient), add to your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE):

$env:COLORTERM = "truecolor"

---

macOS

Terminal.app on Catalina and later, iTerm2, and the VS Code integrated terminal all handle truecolor and Unicode without configuration. Most users need nothing here. (macOS is untested — see the badge at the top.)

If sparklines or box borders show as question marks or plain dashes, install a complete font:

brew install --cask font-jetbrains-mono-nerd-font

Set it in your terminal's font preferences and reopen.

If colors look flat, add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile:

export COLORTERM=truecolor

---

Linux / WSL

WSL users: you're running inside Windows Terminal. Follow the Windows steps above — same terminal, same font.

SSH sessions: the remote shell doesn't inherit truecolor from the local terminal. Add to ~/.bashrc on the remote machine:

export COLORTERM=truecolor
export TERM=xterm-256color

Missing Unicode characters: any Nerd Font covers everything token-goat uses.

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install fonts-jetbrains-mono

# Arch
sudo pacman -S ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd

---

AI automated setup

Scripts for non-interactive setup. No prompts.

Windows (PowerShell)

# 1. Install Windows Terminal if absent
if (-not (Get-Command wt.exe -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
    winget install --id Microsoft.WindowsTerminal -e --silent
}

# 2. Set Windows Terminal as the default console host
#    UI equivalent: Windows Terminal -> Ctrl+, -> Startup -> Default terminal application -> Windows Terminal
#    GUIDs are for Windows Terminal stable release
reg add "HKCU\Console" /v DelegationConsole /t REG_SZ /d "{E12CFF52-A866-4C77-9A90-F570A7AA2C6B}" /f
reg add "HKCU\Console" /v DelegationTerminal /t REG_SZ /d "{E12CFF52-A866-4C77-9A90-F570A7AA2C6B}" /f

# 3. Enable truecolor for the current session and persistently for the user account
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("COLORTERM", "truecolor", "User")
$env:COLORTERM = "truecolor"

# 4. Verify
token-goat stats

macOS / Linux / WSL (bash)

OS="$(uname -s)"

# Install a complete font
if [[ "$OS" == "Darwin" ]]; then
    command -v brew &>/dev/null && brew install --cask font-jetbrains-mono-nerd-font
elif [[ "$OS" == "Linux" ]]; then
    command -v apt-get &>/dev/null && sudo apt-get install -y fonts-jetbrains-mono
    command -v pacman  &>/dev/null && sudo pacman -S --noconfirm ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd
fi

# Enable truecolor — appends only if not already present
RCFILE="${HOME}/.zshrc"
[[ -f "${HOME}/.bashrc" ]] && RCFILE="${HOME}/.bashrc"
grep -q "COLORTERM=truecolor" "$RCFILE" || echo 'export COLORTERM=truecolor' >> "$RCFILE"
grep -q "TERM=xterm-256color" "$RCFILE" || echo 'export TERM=xterm-256color' >> "$RCFILE"
# shellcheck disable=SC1090
source "$RCFILE"

# Verify
token-goat stats

Truecolor check (any platform)

Run this if the stats output still looks wrong. A smooth green gradient from left to right means truecolor is active. Solid single-shade green means it isn't.

python3 -c "
import sys
for r in range(0, 256, 32):
    sys.stdout.write(f'\x1b[48;2;0;{r};0m  ')
sys.stdout.write('\x1b[0m\n')
"

Security, privacy, and uninstall

No telemetry. No analytics. No background reporting or silent outbound connections.

Outbound network is reserved to three explicit cases:

• First token-goat semantic call downloads the embedding model (~130 MB) into the data directory. Offline after that.
• Google Drive API calls, only if you already authorized Drive in Claude Code. Token-goat never prompts for its own auth.
• Explicit, user-triggered URL fetches via token-goat fetch-image <url>.

Security reports. See SECURITY.md. Email [e-mail]; do not file as a GitHub issue. Reports are acknowledged within 7 days; coordinated disclosure with a 90-day default window.

Windows Defender (optional, Windows only). Real-time scanning slows indexing. To exclude the data folder, open PowerShell as administrator:

Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\dfk-helper\token-goat"

0x800106ba means the prompt is not elevated; reopen as administrator. On enterprise-managed Windows (domain-joined / Intune), Defender exclusions may be locked by Group Policy. The command will fail; that is expected and harmless.

Uninstall.

token-goat uninstall

Reverses everything in What gets installed?: the scheduled task or systemd unit, the registry value or .desktop or .plist, the hook entries in settings.json, the CLAUDE.md block, the skill directory. Add --codex, --opencode, or --openclaw to also strip those integrations. Add --purge to also delete the data directory (cache, index, models, logs). Nothing else on the system depends on it.

About

I built this because long Claude Code and Codex sessions on my machine kept burning context in the same ways: screenshots landing at 2-3 MB, the agent re-reading a file it parsed hours earlier in the same conversation, compactions that forgot which functions were edited. Each felt preventable.

This is a solo project. I use it daily on Windows 11. Tests run across Python 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13.

Available for work

Senior or staff engineering. Developer tools, AI infrastructure, or context management.

I've spent months inside Claude Code's hook system, session management, and compaction pipeline. Not reading the docs. Instrumenting them to see what was actually happening. The work is in this repo.

I build systems that run without babysitting, measure their own impact, and fail quietly. If you're building tooling for developers who work with AI, reach out.

[e-mail]

Disclaimer

Token-Goat runs on your machine and touches your files. The software is provided as-is, without warranty of any kind. DFK Helper LLC is not liable for any damages arising from use. Full terms, including the No Liability clause, are in the LICENSE file.

License

Token-Goat is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. See the LICENSE file for the full terms.

Individual developers may install and use Token-Goat on their own machines for personal productivity without a commercial license, provided the use does not involve providing Token-Goat as a service to others, incorporating it into a commercial product or platform, or deploying it as shared infrastructure across a team or organization. Employment at a for-profit company does not by itself make use commercial — but if your employer is the primary beneficiary of the deployment, a commercial license applies. When in doubt, email [e-mail].

Commercial use is reserved. That means copying or incorporating this codebase into a product, charging for access to it, or running it as shared infrastructure across a team at a for-profit company. Commercial licensing: [e-mail].

Copyright (c) 2026 DFK Helper LLC.

Patent Pending.