Claude Code Tips

Claude Code Token-Optimisation Stack

Configs + hooks + scripts for Medium post: "How I Cut Claude Code Token Usage by 90%+".

This repo is intentionally a power-user default: it assumes you want aggressive token control, enforcement hooks, and a local shell wrapper. If you want the full stack, run the default installer. If you want less global surface area, use the opt-out flags below.

Post: claude-code-tips.md

Stack: CBM (code graph) + context-mode (output sandbox) + RTK (shell compression) + Headroom (API-layer) + Caveman (Claude output) + enforcement hooks. ~30min → 3h+ sessions, same 200K window.

Platforms

Every push runs the full installer end to end on macOS, Linux and Windows, then asserts the binaries it claims to have installed are actually resolvable. Badge above.

On Windows the installer rewrites every hook command to an absolute bash.exe plus an absolute script path, because a native Claude Code is a Node process and can spawn hooks through cmd.exe, which expands neither ~ nor a shebang. CI asserts all 18 installed commands resolve under cmd.exe and Git Bash alike. It pins the full path rather than a bare bash on purpose: C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe is the WSL launcher and often sits ahead of Git's on PATH, which would run your hooks against a different filesystem.

One caveat left. The shell wrapper is only exercised as --no-shell-wrapper in CI, so aliasing claude on Windows is still unverified.

Install

Sanity-checks git/curl/jq/python3 upfront. Installs Headroom (pipx, falling back to pip --user), RTK (Homebrew, or the rtk-ai install script), CBM binary, context-mode + Caveman plugins via claude plugin install, hooks, slash commands, statusline, settings, shell wrapper for your $SHELL. Idempotent — re-run anytime.

Power-user flags

Default stays…