governor

Governor for Claude Code

Keep long Claude Code sessions sharp under quota pressure.

Reduce noisy tool output, recurring context bloat, and drift without throwing away the clue.

Quick Start · Why Governor · Benchmarks · Commands · Install

Governor is a Claude Code plugin for context hygiene, tool-output filtering, memory compression, telemetry, and drift guardrails.

It is built for the harder problem than "make the model talk less":

keep long Claude Code sessions efficient without making the model dumber.

The installed Claude Code command namespace is still /governor:*.

Quick Start

bash install.sh --force

Restart Claude Code, then run:

/governor:status
/governor:audit
/governor:compress CLAUDE.md

Governor auto-starts in compact professional mode when the plugin is loaded. Use /governor:off to disable response compression and /governor:on to re-enable it.

Why Governor

Long Claude Code sessions usually do not fail because Claude writes one extra paragraph.

They fail because context gets polluted:

• verbose test, build, and MCP output floods the transcript
• bloated recurring files like CLAUDE.md, notes, and rules tax every session
• broad prompts trigger repo-wide scans and retries
• scope drift compounds over time

Governor is designed for that failure mode.

What It Does

Capability	What it does	Why it matters
Tool-output filtering	Compacts noisy Bash, search, web, task, and MCP-style output when confidence is high	Keeps logs from dominating context
Memory compression	Rewrites bloated recurring prompt files into denser, safer forms	Lowers recurring prompt tax
Compact mode	Keeps Claude Code responses concise and professional	Reduces avoidable output bloat
Telemetry	Reports measured savings, failures, compactions, and waste heat	Lets you see whether Governor is helping
Drift guardrails	Adds planning and scope checks for broad tasks	Helps long sessions stay on track

Why It Feels Different

Most token-saving tools optimize one layer:

• shorter replies
• shorter command output

Governor is built for the broader session problem:

• tool spam
• recurring context tax
• MCP-heavy workflows
• long-task drift
• wasted retries

That is why Governor's benchmark story starts with valid-context loss and decision preservation, not only token counts.

Benchmarks

V2 Sonnet Fixture Run

Recent measured Sonnet run with Claude decision grading:

Condition	Avg token savings	Avg VCLR	Decision preserved	Wrong decision
Caveman	69.1%	0.14	87.5%	12.5%
Governor	45.5%	0.00	100.0%	0.0%

What this means:

• Caveman still wins on raw compression.
• Governor preserved more valid context in this run.
• Governor won on decision quality in the latest Sonnet pass.

Artifacts:

• benchmarks/v2-fixture-results.md
• benchmarks/v2-fixture-results.json
• benchmarks/sonnet-v2-report.md

Early Multi-Turn Pilot

Same machine, fresh Claude CLI Sonnet sessions, same multi-turn task, same starting repo snapshot.

Condition	Output Tokens	Cost	Turns	Intent Preserved	Obvious Regression Found
Control	10,997	$0.5169	21	Yes	No
Governor	10,113	$0.4933	22	Yes	No
Delta	-8.0%	-4.6%	+4.8%	Tie	Tie

This was a narrow pilot, not a universal claim. It matters because Governor kept the implementation contract intact while shaving cost on a real multi-turn coding task.

Tool Filter Signal Checks

Structured/local cases focused on the criticism that compaction can miss the real clue.

Case	Filtered?	Blocked	Signal Preserved
Noisy pytest failure buried in long log	Yes	64.0%	Yes
Burp-style MCP payload with large history + one critical finding	Yes	90.9%	Yes
Large Read output containing source code	No	0.0%	Yes

Compared To

RTK

RTK is excellent at shrinking shell output.

Governor is aimed at the wider Claude Code session:

• tool-output filtering
• recurring prompt-file hygiene
• MCP and structured payload handling
• drift-sensitive long sessions
• measured savings and waste heat inside Claude Code

Caveman

Caveman is excellent when the main goal is making Claude talk in fewer tokens.