Headroom Desktop

Headroom Desktop - cut Claude Code & Codex token costs by ~50%

Headroom is a desktop tray app for macOS, Windows, and Linux that cuts Claude Code and ChatGPT Codex token costs by ~50% - without changing how you code. It also routes OpenCode and Grok Build through the same pipeline. It runs a local-first optimization pipeline that reversibly compresses the tool output, logs, and boilerplate that bloat every prompt, so the AI plan you already pay for stretches about 2x further. Nothing the model needs is lost - it can pull the original content back on demand.
Paid product. Headroom is a paid subscription app (7-day free trial, no credit card required; plans from $4/mo, or $3/mo billed annually) - see pricing. The desktop shell in this repo is MIT-licensed and open source, but the app requires a Headroom account and an active plan to run.

  
macOS: 14 (Sonoma) or later, Apple Silicon or Intel (universal build)
Windows: Windows 10 or later, x64
Linux (preview): x86_64, glibc 2.39 or newer (Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13), plus a running secret-service keyring provider (gnome-keyring or kwallet) for sign-in. Linux builds ship with every stable release, but the platform is still in preview and the app says so

Install

Option A - Homebrew (macOS):

Option B - manual download:

1. Go to the latest release
2. macOS: download the .dmg (for example Headroom_0.9.3_mac.dmg), open it, drag Headroom to Applications
3. Windows: download and run the _x64-setup.exe installer
4. Linux: download the .AppImage (has the built-in updater) or the .deb (same build, updates only by downloading a newer one)
5. Launch Headroom - it appears in your menu bar / system tray and walks you through setup

Headroom is signed and notarized on macOS, so it opens without Gatekeeper warnings. All…