green-pt/honey-for-devs/honey-ccr

Honey CCR

The cheapest token is the one not sent. A 500-row log read for one error line costs 500 rows of context. CCR keeps the rows that carry signal and caches the rest — recoverable by hash, so nothing is lost.

Borrowed from headroom's SmartCrusher. Lossy by design — only for data you skim, never for payloads where every row matters (e.g. a code-review handoff where the implementer needs all findings; use eson encode losslessly there).

When to use

• A tool returns a uniform JSON array of many records (≥ ~5 items, redundant).
• You need to read it but mostly skim — logs, search hits, metrics, events.
• The full data stays reachable, so dropping the boring middle is safe.

Don't use

• Small arrays (passes through untouched anyway) or non-array data.
• Any array where every element is load-bearing — encode it, don't crush it.

How

tool-that-spews-json | eson crush          # → sampled view + sentinel; originals cached
eson retrieve <hash>                        # → the full original array, verbatim

crush prints the kept sample plus a sentinel {"_ccr":"<<ccr:HASH N_rows_offloaded>>"}. When you need a dropped row, read the hash from the sentinel and run eson retrieve <hash>.

• Cache dir: .honey-ccr/ (override with HONEY_CCR_DIR).
• Below the size gate, crush returns the array unchanged with no sentinel — safe to pipe anything.

Always-on hook (entry-time GC)

While Honey is active, a registered PostToolUse hook applies this automatically to Bash output — no opt-in per call. Big uniform JSON arrays (≥20 items, ≥2k chars) are crushed; repetitive text (≥25 lines) gets consecutive repeats collapsed to ⟨×N⟩. The original is always stashed first, and the rewritten result ends with the exact eson retrieve <hash> command that restores it. /honey off disables the hook; history already in context is immutable — this fires at entry, the only place a hook can act.

Caveat: the hook needs Claude Code 2.1.121+; older builds can't rewrite Bash output (a session-start warning tells you). Manual some-tool | eson crush piping works on any version — prefer it there.