Headroom is an open-source tool that shrinks the logs, files and tool results an AI agent reads before they reach the model, so the agent spends fewer tokens.
In plain words
Headroom compresses the tool outputs, logs and search results an agent sends to a model, on your own computer, which its makers say means less noise, faster replies and lower cost. It spots each kind of content and picks a compressor for JSON, source code or plain text, keeping the originals so the model can ask for them again. You can use it as a library, as a proxy that needs no code changes, or by wrapping an agent such as Claude Code in one command.
A quick example
Imagine a coding agent looking into why a server crashed. The log runs to thousands of lines, but only a handful show the error. A compressor keeps those lines and drops the repeats, and the agent can still fetch the whole log if something is missing.
Where you'll meet it
- Coding agents that read long logs and search results.
- Apps that send large JSON tool outputs to a model.
Related
Sources
- Docsheadroomlabs-ai/headroom, Headroom (GitHub) · read 19 Oct 2026
- DocsIntroduction, Headroom docs · read 19 Oct 2026
Checked by WhatIsAI against the sources above · 19 Oct 2026. A full five-minute explainer with a diagram may follow. Spotted an error? Report it.