## Description Several `headroom wrap` sessions in one project each write the proxy URL into `.claude/settings.local.json` and restore it on exit. That read-modify-write was unsynchronised. The write itself is atomic so the file never tears, but the updates were still lost against each other: - **Live sessions were silently unrouted.** The first session to exit deleted the key while its siblings were still running. They kept working, but their traffic stopped going through the proxy — no error, no warning, no savings. - **A dead proxy was written back into the project.** A session that started second captured the *first* session's proxy URL as "the original", so its exit restored a URL pointing at a port that was already gone. Every later session in that project then failed to connect. - **SIGTERM/SIGHUP never ran the restore at all.** `cleanup` was registered as the handler, but a Python signal handler that returns normally does not unwind the stack — under PEP 475 the interrupted `waitpid` is simply retried. The `finally` block that restores `settings.local.json` never ran, while the handler had already terminated the proxy underneath a child that was still alive. Closes #3205 ## Type of Change - [x] Bug fix (non-breaking change that fixes an issue) ## Changes Made - **`_wrap_settings_lock`** — an exclusive OS lock (flock / `msvcrt.locking`) held across the settings read-modify-write. A workspace that cannot hold lock state degrades to the previous behaviour rather than failing, matching `_proxy_start_lock`. - **`.headroom_wrap_owners.json`** — a sidecar recording, per env key, the true pre-wrap `original` plus the live sessions holding it. The first writer records the original; later writers inherit it and are flagged `inherited`, so no session restores a value it did not observe first-hand. A session exits without restoring while a sibling still holds the key. Dead holders are pruned with the same conservative PID+identity liveness the proxy-client markers use, so a SIGKILLed session cannot wedge the key. - **`unwrap` passes `force=True`** — unwrap is the user explicitly asking for their settings back, so it drops every claim instead of deferring to a live sibling and silently printing success while leaving the proxy URL in the file. - **The #2221 self-heal passes `dead_ports`** — a wrapper process can outlive its proxy (proxy alone SIGKILLed). Its claim would otherwise veto the self-heal and leave `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL` pointing at a port just proven dead. - **`_rehome_wrap_marker`** — the wrap marker has one slot, won by the last writer. When that writer exits while a sibling still owns the key, the marker is rewritten to describe the survivor (carrying the record's true original), so the survivor keeps its #2221 self-heal record instead of being left with a marker describing a dead process. - **`_exit_on_signal`** replaces `cleanup` as the SIGTERM/SIGHUP handler. Raising `SystemExit` unwinds, so the settings restore actually runs and cleanup happens exactly once from `finally`. - **`_proxy_start_lock` now shares `_locked_file`** with the new settings lock rather than carrying a second verbatim copy of the platform branches. ## Testing - [x] Unit tests pass (`pytest`) — full suite, 11518 passed / 588 skipped - [x] Linting passes (`ruff check .`) - [x] Type checking passes (`mypy headroom`) - [x] New tests added for new functionality - [x] Manual testing performed `tests/test_wrap_concurrent_settings.py` (14 tests) covers: a sibling exit leaving survivors routed, the last session out restoring the true original, a pre-existing user URL surviving the whole cycle, three sessions in every exit order, a crashed session not wedging the key, forced unwrap past a live session, a holder that outlived its proxy not vetoing the self-heal, marker rehoming, and the signal-handler unwind. ### Test Output ```text $ uv run pytest tests/test_cli/test_unwrap_claude.py tests/test_cli/test_wrap_claude_base_url.py \ tests/test_cli/test_wrap_claude_finally_unbound.py tests/test_cli/test_wrap_claude_vertex_proxy_env.py \ tests/test_cli/test_wrap_claude.py tests/test_cli/test_wrap_dead_marker_selfheal.py \ tests/test_cli/test_wrap_helpers.py tests/test_cli/test_wrap_stale_marker.py \ tests/test_cli/test_wrap_persistent.py tests/test_wrap_concurrent_settings.py tests/test_cli_doctor.py -q tests/test_wrap_concurrent_settings.py .............. [ 72%] tests/test_cli_doctor.py ............................................... [ 89%] ............................... [100%] ============================= 285 passed in 3.01s ============================== $ uv run pytest tests/ -q ======== 11518 passed, 588 skipped, 6036 warnings in 1831.34s (0:30:31) ======== $ uv run ruff check . All checks passed! $ uv run mypy headroom Success: no issues found in 527 source files ``` ## Real Behavior Proof - **Environment:** macOS 15 (Darwin 25.4.0), Python 3.12.13, repo venv, Claude provider path (`ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL` in `.claude/settings.local.json`). - **Exact command / steps:** a script spawning **two real OS processes** — no mocks, real PIDs, real files — that call the same `_write_claude_wrap_base_url` / `_restore_claude_wrap_base_url` helpers `wrap claude` uses. The project starts with a real user gateway already set. Session A (port 8787) starts, session B (port 8788) starts 0.7s later, A exits while B is still running, then B exits. Run identically on `main` and on this branch. **Before (on `main`) — both bugs visible:** ```text start : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://my-gateway.example.com"} session port=8787 started, remembers previous='https://my-gateway.example.com' session port=8788 started, remembers previous='http://127.0.0.1:8787' both sessions running : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:8788"} session port=8787 exited after FIRST session exits : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://my-gateway.example.com"} session port=8788 exited after LAST session exits : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:8787"} ``` Session B is still running, but after A exits the proxy URL is gone from under it — B is unrouted with no error. And the final state is `http://127.0.0.1:8787`: a dead proxy left permanently in the user's project, with their real gateway lost. **After (this branch):** ```text start : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://my-gateway.example.com"} session port=8787 started, remembers previous='https://my-gateway.example.com' session port=8788 started, remembers previous='http://127.0.0.1:8787' both sessions running : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:8788"} session port=8787 exited after FIRST session exits : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:8788"} session port=8788 exited after LAST session exits : {"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://my-gateway.example.com"} ``` B stays routed after A exits, and the last session out restores the user's real gateway. - **Observed result:** matches the intent on both counts — no unrouting, no dead proxy residue, user's pre-existing URL preserved. - **Not tested:** Windows (`msvcrt.locking`) — the lock and dead-holder pruning are exercised on POSIX only; the Windows branch is the same code path `_proxy_start_lock` has shipped with. No live end-to-end run against a real Anthropic endpoint with two concurrent `claude` CLIs; the proof above drives the same helpers out of two real processes instead. Foundry/Vertex key variants are covered by unit tests, not by a live run. Real SIGTERM/SIGHUP delivery to a running `wrap claude` was not exercised end to end — the handler's unwind is covered by a unit test, and full signal delivery would need a spawned and killed subprocess, which the existing #1768 test also declined to do. ## Runtime Rollout Safety - **Rollout-managed feature(s):** none — this is an unconditional correctness fix on the wrap settings path. - **Minimum rollout channel:** n/a. - **Stable/default behavior changed:** yes, three ways. (1) A wrap session exiting while a sibling holds the key now leaves the key in place instead of removing it. (2) SIGTERM/SIGHUP now unwinds, so the child CLI is terminated by `subprocess.run`'s cleanup rather than being left running against a torn-down proxy. (3) Two new sidecar files appear next to `settings.local.json`: `.headroom_wrap_owners.json` (removed when the last holder exits) and `.headroom_wrap_settings.lock` (retained by design — deleting a live lock file creates an inode-replacement race). - **Kill switch / disable path:** none. A workspace where the lock file cannot be created degrades to the previous unsynchronised behaviour automatically. - **Unsafe override required:** no. - **Qualification impact:** none beyond the wrap settings path. - **Rollback path:** revert the commit; the sidecar files are ignored by older versions and can be deleted safely. ## Review Readiness - [x] I have performed a self-review - [x] This PR is ready for human review ## Checklist - [x] My code follows the project's style guidelines - [x] I have performed a self-review of my code - [x] I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas - [x] I have made corresponding changes to the documentation - [x] My changes generate no new warnings - [x] I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works - [x] New and existing unit tests pass locally with my changes - [x] I did **not** edit `CHANGELOG.md` ## Additional Notes - The ownership record is keyed per env key, so `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL`, the Foundry/Vertex variants and the tool-search entry are tracked independently. - Documentation: the behaviour is documented in the helper docstrings rather than user-facing docs — the sidecar files are internal state a user never configures. - Follow-up worth considering: `.headroom_wrap_settings.lock` is intentionally never deleted (matching `_proxy_start_lock`'s retention rationale), so it stays in `.claude/` after `unwrap`. Removing it safely needs a separate think about the inode-replacement race. Co-authored-by: Tejas Chopra <tejas@Tejass-MacBook-Pro.local> Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> |
||
|---|---|---|
| .cargo | ||
| .claude-plugin | ||
| .codegraph | ||
| .devcontainer | ||
| .github | ||
| .serena | ||
| benchmarks | ||
| crates | ||
| deploy/beacon | ||
| docker | ||
| docs | ||
| e2e | ||
| examples | ||
| headroom | ||
| plugins | ||
| REALIGNMENT | ||
| sbom | ||
| scripts | ||
| sdk/typescript | ||
| sql | ||
| tests | ||
| wiki | ||
| .actrc | ||
| .actrc.local.example | ||
| .changelog.md | ||
| .commitlintrc.json | ||
| .dockerignore | ||
| .env.act.example | ||
| .env.example | ||
| .git-blame-ignore-revs | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitguardian.yaml | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .gitleaks.toml | ||
| .pre-commit-config.yaml | ||
| .release-please-config.json | ||
| .release-please-manifest.json | ||
| .releasemetadata | ||
| Cargo.lock | ||
| Cargo.toml | ||
| CHANGELOG.md | ||
| claude_analysis_ttl.py | ||
| CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md | ||
| codecov.yml | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| dashboard-cache-ttl-main.png | ||
| deny.toml | ||
| docker-bake.hcl | ||
| docker-compose.yml | ||
| Dockerfile | ||
| Headroom-2.gif | ||
| headroom-savings.png | ||
| headroom_learn.gif | ||
| HeadroomDemo-Fast.gif | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| llms.txt | ||
| Makefile | ||
| NOTICE | ||
| pyproject.toml | ||
| README.md | ||
| run-all-plugins.sh | ||
| rust-toolchain.toml | ||
| RUST_DEV.md | ||
| SECURITY.md | ||
| server.json | ||
| TESTING-copilot-subscription.md | ||
| uv.lock | ||
██╗ ██╗███████╗ █████╗ ██████╗ ██████╗ ██████╗ ██████╗ ███╗ ███╗
██║ ██║██╔════╝██╔══██╗██╔══██╗██╔══██╗██╔═══██╗██╔═══██╗████╗ ████║
███████║█████╗ ███████║██║ ██║██████╔╝██║ ██║██║ ██║██╔████╔██║
██╔══██║██╔══╝ ██╔══██║██║ ██║██╔══██╗██║ ██║██║ ██║██║╚██╔╝██║
██║ ██║███████╗██║ ██║██████╔╝██║ ██║╚██████╔╝╚██████╔╝██║ ╚═╝ ██║
╚═╝ ╚═╝╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝
The context compression layer for AI agents
60–95% fewer tokens (for JSON data), 15-20% fewer tokens (for coding agents) · library · proxy · MCP · content-aware compressors · local-first · reversible
Docs · Install · Proof · Agents · Discord · llms.txt
AI agents / LLMs: read /llms.txt here, or fetch the live index / full docs blob.
Headroom compresses everything your AI agent reads — tool outputs, logs, RAG chunks, files, and conversation history — before it reaches the LLM. Same answers, fraction of the tokens.
Live: 10,144 → 1,260 tokens — same FATAL found.
What it does
- Library —
compress(messages)in Python or TypeScript, inline in any app - Proxy —
headroom proxy --port 8787, zero code changes, any language - Agent wrap —
headroom wrap claude|codex|grok|copilot|cursor|aider|opencode|cline|continue|goose|openhands|openclaw|vibe|omp|zcodein one command; undo withheadroom unwrap <tool> - MCP server —
headroom_compress,headroom_retrieve,headroom_statsfor any MCP client - Cross-agent memory — shared store across Claude, Codex, Gemini, Grok, auto-dedup
headroom learn— mines failed sessions, writes corrections toCLAUDE.local.md(default, gitignored) orCLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md/GEMINI.md/GROK.md- Output token reduction — trims what the model writes back (not just what you send): drops ceremony/restated code and skips deep "thinking" on routine steps. See Output token reduction.
- Reversible (CCR) — originals are cached for retrieval on demand
How it works (30 seconds)
Your agent / app
(Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, LangChain, Agno, Strands, your own code…)
│ prompts · tool outputs · logs · RAG results · files
▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Headroom (runs locally — your data stays here) │
│ ──────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│ CacheAligner → ContentRouter → CCR │
│ ├─ SmartCrusher (JSON) │
│ ├─ CodeCompressor (AST) │
│ └─ Kompress-v2-base (text, HF) │
│ │
│ Cross-agent memory · headroom learn · MCP │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ compressed prompt + retrieval tool
▼
LLM provider (Anthropic · OpenAI · Bedrock · …)
- ContentRouter — detects content type, selects the right compressor
- SmartCrusher / CodeCompressor / Kompress-v2-base — compress JSON, AST, or prose
- CacheAligner - detects and warns about volatile content that can bust provider KV cache prefixes; never rewrites prompts
- CCR — stores originals locally; LLM calls
headroom_retrieveif it needs them
→ Architecture · CCR reversible compression · Kompress-v2-base model card
Get started (60 seconds)
# 1 — Install
uv tool install --python 3.13 "headroom-ai[all]" # CLI as a global tool in a self-contained virtual env
pip install "headroom-ai[all]" # Python — ships the `headroom` CLI
npm install headroom-ai # TypeScript SDK only — no `headroom` CLI
# 2 — Pick your mode (the `headroom` commands below come from the uv or pip install)
headroom deploy # turnkey local deployment + agent config
headroom wrap claude # wrap a coding agent
headroom proxy --port 8787 # drop-in proxy, zero code changes
# or: from headroom import compress # inline library
# 3 — Verify setup and see the savings
headroom doctor # health check — confirms routing is working
headroom perf
headroom dashboard # live savings dashboard (proxy must be running)
To use headroom, it is recommended you launch a wrapped agent session each time so that all necessary setup is completed. When wrapping a coding agent, headroom starts a local proxy, installs Serena for semantic code navigation, and launches a coding agent session configured to proxy requests through headroom.
Serena is registered at user scope (for Claude Code, in ~/.claude.json), so it stays available in your other projects until you run headroom unwrap. To skip it entirely, wrap with --code-memory none.
The headroom CLI ships only via the PyPI package. The npm headroom-ai is the TypeScript SDK — a library you import (import { compress } from 'headroom-ai'), not a CLI, so it provides no headroom command.
Granular extras: [proxy], [mcp], [ml], [code], [memory], [vector] (optional HNSW backend — needs a C++ toolchain, not in [all]), [relevance], [image], [agno], [langchain], [evals], [pytorch-mps] (Apple-GPU memory-embedder offload — set HEADROOM_EMBEDDER_RUNTIME=pytorch_mps). Requires Python 3.10+.
Codex / global install
If Codex or another MCP client cannot inherit a shell PATH reliably, install Headroom as a persistent uv tool and point the client at the absolute binary path:
uv tool install "headroom-ai[all]"
command -v headroom
Then use the returned path in MCP config:
[mcp_servers.headroom]
command = "/absolute/path/from/command-v/headroom"
args = ["mcp", "serve"]
command = "headroom" only works when the client starts with a PATH that already includes the uv tool directory.
Proof
Savings on real agent workloads:
| Workload | Before | After | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Code search (100 results) | 17,765 | 1,408 | 92% |
| SRE incident debugging | 65,694 | 5,118 | 92% |
| GitHub issue triage | 54,174 | 14,761 | 73% |
| Codebase exploration | 78,502 | 41,254 | 47% |
Accuracy preserved on standard benchmarks:
| Benchmark | Category | N | Baseline | Headroom | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GSM8K | Math | 100 | 0.870 | 0.870 | ±0.000 |
| TruthfulQA | Factual | 100 | 0.530 | 0.560 | +0.030 |
| SQuAD v2 | QA | 100 | — | 97% | 19% compression |
| BFCL | Tools | 100 | — | 97% | 32% compression |
Reproduce: python -m headroom.evals suite --tier 1 · Full benchmarks & methodology
Output token reduction (cut what the model writes back)
Everything above shrinks the prompt you send. But you also pay for every token the model writes back — and on Opus-class models output costs 5× input. A lot of that output is waste: "Great, let me…" preambles, re-printing code you just showed it, and deep "thinking" on routine steps like reading a file.
Headroom can trim that too, from the proxy, without you changing any code:
- Verbosity steering — appends a short "be terse, don't restate context" note to the end of the system prompt (so your prompt cache still hits).
- Effort routing — when a turn is just the model resuming after a tool result (a file read, a passing test), it dials the model's thinking effort down. New questions and errors keep full effort.
Applies to Anthropic /v1/messages and OpenAI-compatible endpoints
(/v1/chat/completions, /v1/responses). Effort routing uses
reasoning_effort on OpenAI, thinking.budget_tokens /
output_config.effort on Anthropic — same clamp-only invariant on both
paths, same output_shaper:* label vocabulary.
Turn it on:
export HEADROOM_OUTPUT_SHAPER=1 # off by default
headroom proxy --port 8787
Already running a proxy? These switches are read live on every request, so a proxy that
headroom wrapreused (rather than started) would not see a value you export afterwards — its environment was snapshotted at launch.headroom wrapnow hot-syncs your current settings to the running proxy via a loopbackPOST /admin/runtime-env, so they take effect immediately with no restart (no cold start, no dropped requests, no lost caches). Set them before youwrap. On a shared proxy these overrides are global — the last explicit setting wins.
Learn the right terseness for you. People don't say how terse they want
answers — they show it (they interrupt long replies, or move on before they
could have read them). headroom learn --verbosity reads your past sessions and
picks the level automatically:
headroom learn --verbosity # preview what it found (dry run)
headroom learn --verbosity --apply # save it; the proxy uses it from now on
See how many output tokens you saved. Output savings are counterfactual — we never see what the model would have written — so Headroom reports an honest estimate with a confidence range, never a made-up number:
headroom output-savings
# Reduction: 31.7% (95% CI 27.7% … 35.7%) [estimated]
Want a measured number instead of an estimate? Leave 10% of conversations
unshaped as a control group: export HEADROOM_OUTPUT_HOLDOUT=0.1. The dashboard
shows an Output Tokens Saved card next to input compression, labelled
measured or estimated with the confidence band.
→ Full write-up incl. the measurement methodology: Output token reduction
Agent compatibility matrix
| Agent | headroom wrap |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | ✅ | --memory · --code-graph · --1m · --tool-search |
| Codex | ✅ | shares memory with Claude |
| Grok CLI | ✅ | routes via GROK_MODELS_BASE_URL |
| Cursor | Manual setup | starts proxy and prints base URLs for Cursor settings |
| Aider | ✅ | starts proxy + launches |
| Copilot CLI | ✅ | starts proxy + launches |
| VS Code Copilot | ✅ | transparent proxy; preserves selected model |
| OpenClaw | ✅ | installs as ContextEngine plugin |
| OpenCode | ✅ | injects config · starts proxy + launches |
| Cline | ✅ | starts proxy + injects config |
| Continue | ✅ | starts proxy + injects config |
| Goose | ✅ | starts proxy + launches |
| OpenHands | ✅ | starts proxy + launches |
| Mistral Vibe | ✅ | starts proxy + launches |
| Oh My Pi | ✅ | injects config · starts proxy + launches |
| Cortex Code | Library only | 60–65% savings (library mode; no wrap) |
| Kimi CLI | ✅ | OAuth bearer forwarded — log in once |
| ZCode | ✅ | starts proxy and prints base URLs for ZCode settings |
Any OpenAI-compatible client works via headroom proxy. MCP-native: headroom mcp install.
Undo durable wrapping with headroom unwrap <tool> (supports: claude, copilot, codex, grok, kimi, omp, opencode, openclaw, zcode).
Registry authors can use the canonical server.json in the repo root instead of reconstructing the headroom mcp serve contract from prose.
GitHub Copilot CLI subscription mode
Headroom can route GitHub Copilot CLI subscription traffic through the local proxy:
headroom copilot-auth login
headroom wrap copilot --subscription -- --model gpt-4o
This lets Headroom intercept OpenAI-compatible Copilot CLI requests and apply the same proxy compression pipeline before forwarding to GitHub Copilot's hosted API. The wrapper exchanges Headroom's reusable GitHub OAuth token for Copilot's short-lived API token and prints the upstream endpoint as COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_URL=... during launch.
headroom copilot-auth login stores a Headroom-specific Copilot OAuth token.
This avoids relying on generic GitHub or Copilot CLI tokens that can read
Copilot account metadata but may still be rejected by Copilot's token-exchange
endpoint.
For GitHub Enterprise Server or custom-domain Copilot deployments, set one of these before launching:
export GITHUB_COPILOT_ENTERPRISE_DOMAIN=ghe.example.com
# or
export GITHUB_COPILOT_ENTERPRISE_URL=https://ghe.example.com
Both variables are supported. If both are set,
GITHUB_COPILOT_ENTERPRISE_URL takes precedence.
For GitHub.com Enterprise Cloud URLs such as
github.com/enterprises/your-enterprise, do not set an enterprise-domain
override. Headroom uses GitHub's normal token-exchange endpoint and the Copilot
API endpoint advertised for the signed-in account.
Platform support note: macOS auth reuse via Copilot CLI Keychain storage has been smoke-tested. Windows Credential Manager, Linux Secret Service / secret-tool, and Docker/CI token-injection paths are implemented or planned as auth-discovery paths, but still need real OS validation before they should be considered fully vetted. For Docker and CI, prefer passing an explicit GITHUB_COPILOT_TOKEN or GITHUB_COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN rather than relying on host keychain access.
GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code
Headroom transparently overrides Copilot's API proxy endpoint, so the normal VS Code model picker remains authoritative. GPT-5.5, GPT-5.6 Luna/Sol/Terra, Claude Sonnet/Opus, and other Copilot models keep their original model IDs while traffic passes through the local compression proxy. Headroom does not patch VS Code or change Codex settings:
headroom copilot-auth login
headroom wrap vscode
Keep the command running and use Copilot normally. Headroom holds the short-lived upstream Copilot token only in the proxy process. See the cross-platform VS Code Copilot guide for paths, credential flow, remote-development notes, undo steps, and troubleshooting.
Claude Code in Visual Studio Code
The official Claude Code extension embeds Claude Code and reads the same user settings as the CLI. Install Headroom's proxy dependencies, then run the wrapper from the project you plan to open in VS Code:
pip install "headroom-ai[proxy]"
headroom wrap vscode-claude
On the first run, reload the VS Code window. Keep the wrapper terminal running while you use the Claude Code panel; inspect the dashboard or proxy log printed at startup to see requests and savings. Headroom preserves your Anthropic authentication and selected model.
Press Ctrl+C to stop the proxy. Restart the same command before using Claude
Code again, or completely restore the settings that existed before setup:
headroom unwrap vscode-claude
See the VS Code Claude Code guide for verification, configuration paths, custom profiles, remote development, and troubleshooting.
When to use · When to skip
Great fit if you…
- run AI coding agents daily and want savings without changing your code
- work across multiple agents and want shared memory
- need reversible compression — originals are retrievable via CCR within the configured TTL
Skip it if you…
- only use a single provider's native compaction and don't need cross-agent memory
- work in a sandboxed environment where local processes can't run
Integrations — drop Headroom into any stack
| Your setup | Hook in with |
|---|---|
| Any Python app | compress(messages, model=…) |
| Any TypeScript app | await compress(messages, { model }) |
| Anthropic / OpenAI SDK | withHeadroom(new Anthropic()) · withHeadroom(new OpenAI()) |
| Vercel AI SDK | wrapLanguageModel({ model, middleware: headroomMiddleware() }) |
| LiteLLM | litellm.callbacks = [HeadroomCallback()] |
| LangChain | HeadroomChatModel(your_llm) |
| Agno | HeadroomAgnoModel(your_model) |
| Strands | Strands guide |
| ASGI apps | app.add_middleware(CompressionMiddleware) |
| Multi-agent | SharedContext().put / .get |
| MCP clients | headroom mcp install |
What's inside
- SmartCrusher — universal JSON: arrays of dicts, nested objects, mixed types.
- CodeCompressor — AST-aware for Python, JS/TS, Go, Rust, Java, C/C++, Perl.
- Kompress-v2-base — our HuggingFace model, trained on agentic traces.
- Image compression — 40–90% reduction via trained ML router.
- CacheAligner - detects and warns about volatile content that can bust provider KV cache prefixes; never rewrites prompts.
- Live-zone compression — compresses only new bytes (fresh tool output, latest turn); frozen prefix stays byte-identical so provider cache is not busted. History is never dropped.
- CCR — reversible compression; LLM retrieves originals on demand.
- Cross-agent memory — shared store, agent provenance, auto-dedup.
- SharedContext — compressed context passing across multi-agent workflows.
headroom learn— plugin-based failure mining for Claude, Codex, Gemini.
Pipeline internals
Headroom exposes one stable request lifecycle across compress(), the SDK, and the proxy:
Setup → Pre-Start → Post-Start → Input Received → Input Cached → Input Routed → Input Compressed → Input Remembered → Pre-Send → Post-Send → Response Received
- Transforms do the work: CacheAligner → ContentRouter → SmartCrusher / CodeCompressor / Kompress-base (live-zone only; IntelligentContext and RollingWindow were retired in PR-B1).
- Pipeline extensions observe or customize lifecycle stages via
on_pipeline_event(...). - Compression hooks sit alongside the canonical lifecycle as an additional extension seam.
- Proxy extensions remain the server/app integration seam for ASGI middleware, routes, and startup policy.
Provider and tool-specific behavior lives under headroom/providers/ so core orchestration stays focused on lifecycle, sequencing, and policy.
- CLI/tool slices:
headroom/providers/claude,copilot,codex,grok,openclaw - Provider runtime slices:
headroom/providers/claude,gemini, plus shared backend/runtime dispatch inheadroom/providers/registry.py - Core files stay orchestration-first:
wrap.py,client.py,cli/proxy.py, andproxy/server.pydelegate provider-specific env shaping, API target normalization, backend selection, and transport dispatch.
Headroom for teams
Headroom OSS is built for individual developers: run headroom proxy or headroom wrap on your laptop and start cutting tokens in minutes — free, local-first, your data never leaves your machine.
Running it across a whole engineering org is a different job: a shared, always-on deployment; centralized config and version rollout; org-wide savings dashboards; SSO and access controls; air-gapped / VPC installs; and someone to call when it matters. That's what we help companies with — self-hosted with support, or fully managed.
If your team is spending real money on LLM tokens — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or agents running in CI — and you want those savings across everyone, not just one laptop:
→ Email hello@headroomlabs.ai with your stack and rough monthly LLM spend, and we'll help you roll Headroom out across your organization.
Everything in this repo stays open source (Apache 2.0). The managed offering is simply for teams that would rather have it deployed, supported, and scaled for them.
Install
uv tool install --python 3.13 "headroom-ai[all]" # CLI, isolated app env
pip install "headroom-ai[all]" # Python, everything — includes the `headroom` CLI
npm install headroom-ai # TypeScript SDK (library only — no `headroom` CLI)
docker pull ghcr.io/headroomlabs-ai/headroom:latest
Granular extras: [proxy], [mcp], [ml] (Kompress-v2-base), [code], [memory], [vector] (optional HNSW backend — needs a C++ toolchain, not in [all]), [relevance], [image], [agno], [langchain], [evals], [pytorch-mps] (Apple-GPU memory-embedder offload — set HEADROOM_EMBEDDER_RUNTIME=pytorch_mps). Requires Python 3.10+.
Note
:
[all]covers the core stack but excludes framework adapters. Install them separately:pip install "headroom-ai[langchain]"(also[agno],[strands],[anyllm],[bedrock]).
Using uv for the headroom CLI? Prefer uv tool install so the command lives in an isolated app environment. On macOS, pass --python 3.13 if your default python3 is newer than the current wheel set:
brew install python@3.13 # if Python 3.13 is not already available
uv tool install --python 3.13 "headroom-ai[all]"
uv tool update-shell # if ~/.local/bin is not already on PATH
headroom --version
For MCP clients such as Codex that do not inherit your interactive shell PATH, configure the absolute executable path returned by command -v headroom:
[mcp_servers.headroom]
command = "/Users/you/.local/bin/headroom"
args = ["mcp", "serve"]
Current native wheels cover macOS Apple Silicon and Linux. On Intel macOS, use Docker-native install until native wheel support lands.
Using pipx? Choose a supported interpreter explicitly:
pipx install --python python3.13 "headroom-ai[all]"
Pick 3.13 if you want dollar savings. The dashboard's Proxy $ Saved tile prices compression with LiteLLM, and LiteLLM can't be installed on Python 3.14+. On 3.14 token savings still track, but the dollar figure stays
$0.00. If you already installed on 3.14, switch withpipx reinstall headroom-ai --python python3.13and restart the proxy.
→ Installation guide — Docker tags, persistent service, PowerShell, devcontainers.
CPU requirement (x86/x86_64): the ONNX-backed features — Magika content detection and embedding relevance — use a precompiled ONNX Runtime that needs AVX2. On x86 hosts without AVX2 (some Docker/QEMU setups and older cloud VMs) Headroom automatically falls back to its non-ONNX paths (BM25 relevance, heuristic detection) rather than crashing.
arm64/Apple Silicon needs no AVX2.
Updating
headroom update # detects pip / pipx / uv tool and upgrades in place
headroom update --check # report the latest release without upgrading
headroom update --pre # include pre-releases
headroom update figures out how Headroom was installed (pip/venv, pip --user,
pipx, uv tool) and runs the matching upgrade across macOS, Linux, and Windows.
For git checkouts, editable installs, Docker images, and externally-managed
system Pythons (PEP 668) it prints the correct manual step instead of guessing.
The proxy also shows a one-line "update available" notice on startup. It checks
PyPI at most once a day, in the background, and never blocks. Opt out with
HEADROOM_UPDATE_CHECK=off (also skipped in --stateless mode and CI).
Corporate / SSL-inspection environments
If pip install "headroom-ai[all]" fails with CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED
(unable to get local issuer certificate), your network uses SSL inspection — a MITM
proxy presenting a company-issued CA. The build backend (maturin) downloads rustup over a
connection your TLS stack doesn't trust. Install Rust first so the build doesn't fetch it:
# macOS / Linux
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh && rustup default stable
# Windows
winget install Rustlang.Rustup && rustup default stable
Restart your shell, then pip install "headroom-ai[all]". A prebuilt wheel avoids the Rust
build entirely where available: pip install --only-binary headroom-ai headroom-ai. Prebuilt
wheels are published for Windows (win_amd64), Linux (x86_64 / aarch64), and macOS
(Apple Silicon and Intel), so installs on those platforms never need a local Rust toolchain — the
Rust-first dance above is only for the platform-independent sdist fallback when no wheel matches.
Two runtime assets are fetched over TLS; if they are blocked, trust your corporate CA via
REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE / SSL_CERT_FILE / CURL_CA_BUNDLE:
cdn.pyke.io— the ONNX Runtime for the Rust core. Alternatively pre-provide it withORT_STRATEGY=systemandORT_LIB_LOCATION=/path/to/onnxruntime.huggingface.co— thekompress-basecompression model. Pre-download it and run withHF_HUB_OFFLINE=1, or setHF_ENDPOINTto a trusted mirror.
Running with compression disabled (pure gateway) requires neither asset.
Intel macOS (x86_64-apple-darwin): no prebuilt ONNX Runtime binary (#941)
ort-sys ships no prebuilt ONNX Runtime binary for Intel macOS, so a source
build fails by default even outside a corporate-proxy environment. The same
ORT_STRATEGY=system mechanism above fixes it — point it at a system ONNX
Runtime instead:
brew install onnxruntime
ORT_STRATEGY=system \
ORT_LIB_LOCATION="$(brew --prefix onnxruntime)/lib" \
ORT_PREFER_DYNAMIC_LINK=1 \
pip install "headroom-ai[all]"
# ORT is dlopen'd at runtime too:
export ORT_DYLIB_PATH="$(brew --prefix onnxruntime)/lib/libonnxruntime.dylib"
ORT_LIB_LOCATION must point at lib/ (not the bare prefix) and
ORT_PREFER_DYNAMIC_LINK=1 is required, or ORT_STRATEGY=system still
attempts static linking, which the Homebrew keg doesn't provide.
"Basic Constraints of CA cert not marked critical" (Python 3.13+ strict mode)
A different failure from the one above. If TLS fails with:
[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed:
Basic Constraints of CA cert not marked critical
then the corporate CA is found and trusted — adding it to a CA bundle changes nothing.
Python 3.13 + OpenSSL 3.x enable VERIFY_X509_STRICT by default, which enforces RFC 5280
§4.2.1.9: a CA cert's basicConstraints must be marked critical. Inspection roots like
Zscaler set CA:TRUE without the critical bit, so the chain is rejected.
Set HEADROOM_TLS_STRICT=0 to clear only the strict flag from every TLS context
Headroom controls — the proxy's httpx upstream client and the urllib3/huggingface_hub
path used for model downloads. Chain validation, signature, expiry, and hostname checks all
stay on; this is strictly narrower than disabling verification.
HEADROOM_TLS_STRICT=0 headroom proxy --port 8787
The Rust core's ONNX download (cdn.pyke.io) uses a separate TLS stack (rustls / OS trust
store), unaffected by HEADROOM_TLS_STRICT. On Windows the corporate root must be in the
machine certificate store (browsers already trust it there); or pre-provision ONNX
Runtime with ORT_STRATEGY=system + ORT_LIB_LOCATION=/path/to/onnxruntime to skip the
download entirely.
headroom learn
headroom learn — mines failed sessions, writes corrections to CLAUDE.local.md (default, gitignored; use --target CLAUDE.md for the shared team file) / AGENTS.md / GEMINI.md.
Documentation
| Start here | Go deeper |
|---|---|
| Quickstart | Architecture |
| Proxy | How compression works |
| MCP tools | CCR — reversible compression |
| Memory | Cache optimization |
| Failure learning | Benchmarks |
| Configuration | Limitations |
Persistent installs (headroom init / headroom install apply) |
Savings analytics (headroom savings / headroom perf / headroom doctor) |
Compared to
Headroom runs locally, covers every content type, works with every major framework, and is reversible.
| Scope | Deploy | Local | Reversible | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Headroom | All context — tools, RAG, logs, files, history | Proxy · library · middleware · MCP | Yes | Yes |
| Compresr, Token Co. | Text sent to their API | Hosted API call | No | No |
| OpenAI Compaction | Conversation history | Provider-native | No | No |
Stack & integrations. Headroom is the proxy — that's what we build and offer, and it compresses everything flowing through it no matter what sits upstream. Our recommended companion is Serena (installed by default when you wrap an agent) for semantic code navigation — plus Ponytail if you want leaner model output. Everything else is your call: you're free to attach your own tooling — code-memory MCP, Graphify, Caveman, or any MCP server — and Headroom compresses downstream of all of it.
Contributing
git clone https://github.com/chopratejas/headroom.git && cd headroom
uv sync --extra dev && uv run pytest
Devcontainers in .devcontainer/ (default + memory-stack with Qdrant & Neo4j). See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Community
- Discord — questions, feedback, war stories.
- Kompress-v2-base on HuggingFace — the model behind our text compression.
Community projects
- Claude Code status-line indicator — a Claude Code plugin that shows live Headroom usage in your status line: idle until
headroom_compressfires, then the running total of tokens saved.
License
Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.