HN demo: Terse, a Claude Code plugin that halves reply length by cutting filler
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| Source: HN | Original article
A new Claude Code plugin called Terse cuts reply length by roughly half by stripping filler content.
A new open‑source plugin for Anthropic’s Claude Code has appeared on Hacker News under the name **Terse**. The tool, posted by developer lowenbjer, claims to halve the length of Claude’s replies by stripping “filler, mannered prose and stylistic tics.” It does so through a set of 22 writing rules that apply to code explanations, documentation, commit messages and sub‑agent outputs, and it adds a “context meter” to the status line so users can see how much of the model’s context is being consumed.
Benchmarks supplied with the plugin show a 46‑54 % reduction in word count and a 32‑51 % drop in cost when the plugin is run on Anthropic’s Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5 models. The code is released under an MIT licence and can be installed directly from the Claude plugin directory or from the GitHub repository. Users are encouraged to report any remaining “Claude‑speak” as issues.
The plugin matters because token usage remains a primary cost driver for developers who rely on large language models for code‑related tasks. As we reported on 8 October, Anthropic’s recent launch of Claude Haiku 5.5 targets high‑volume, cost‑sensitive workloads; Terse pushes the economics further by trimming the output before it even reaches the model’s token counter. For teams that already use Claude for code review, documentation or automated agents, the reduction in verbosity translates into faster responses and lower bills.
What to watch next is how quickly the community adopts Terse and whether Anthropic integrates similar compression mechanisms into its own “concise” mode. Feedback loops on the GitHub issue tracker could drive refinements, and other plugin developers may follow suit, expanding the ecosystem of tools that make Claude’s output more efficient for everyday coding workflows.
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