contasty

Strips executable lines from your code to prepare tasty context for your agent.

Walks a directory (respecting .gitignore), parses each supported source file with ast-grep, and elides function bodies, constant values, and long string literals — keeping declarations, signatures, and types intact. The result prints as a single Markdown document, ready to paste into an LLM context window.

// before
pub fn checkout(cart: &Cart, user: &User) -> Result<Receipt> {
    let total = cart.total();
    charge(user, total)?;
    Ok(Receipt::new(total))
}

// after — comments/imports gone, body elided, signature kept
pub fn checkout(cart: &Cart, user: &User) -> Result<Receipt> {}

Each language is driven by a YAML rule file matched against the AST, not by hardcoded per-language logic. Built-in support: Rust, PHP, TypeScript, TSX, JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, C#, Ruby, C++, C, Kotlin, Swift, Scala, Bash, Lua, Dart, Elixir, Haskell, Nix, Solidity, JSON, YAML, HTML, CSS, and HCL — every grammar ast-grep bundles except Markdown (prose, nothing to strip). You can add a language with a dynamic tree-sitter grammar, and extend or override any language's rules from contasty.toml — both without rebuilding contasty.

Install

From crates.io

cargo install contasty

From binary releases

Download a pre-built binary from the latest release.

Usage

contasty src/ > context.md             # strip a directory
contasty src/lib.rs                    # strip a single file
contasty src/ tests/ > context.md      # multiple paths (deduped union)
contasty src/lib.rs src/main.rs        # several files at once
contasty 'src/**/*.rs'                 # glob (quote it; expanded internally)
contasty 'crates/*/src'                # glob to dirs; each subtree is walked
contasty                               # default path is "."
contasty --strip=comments,imports src/  # strip comments and imports
contasty --strip=tests src/             # also strip test functions
contasty --strip=all src/               # strip everything (alias: everything)
contasty --strip=all,!body src/         # strip all except bodies
contasty --strip=none src/              # strip nothing (keep all categories)
contasty --strip=none tests/            # per-path: keep everything in tests/
contasty --format=json src/            # emit a JSON bundle instead of Markdown
contasty --stats src/                  # print compactization statistics
contasty --config path.toml src/       # use a specific contasty.toml
contasty --no-reformat src/            # skip all post-strip reformatting
contasty --ignore=disable src/         # include .gitignored files too
contasty --ignore=reverse src/         # only .gitignored files
contasty A --ignore=disable B --ignore=enable C  # per-path mode switching

Multiple arguments resolve to a deduped, sorted union of source files. A folder is walked .gitignore-aware; a glob is expanded internally (quote it) and a glob over directories walks each subtree. A glob matching nothing warns; a missing path errors.

Output defaults to Markdown. Pass --format=json for a pretty-printed JSON bundle shaped as { "base": <dir>, "files": [{ "path", "lang", "content" }] }.

Four categories control what is stripped:

Category	Default	Example
comments	stripped	--strip=comments
imports	stripped	--strip=imports
tests	kept	--strip=tests
body	stripped	--strip=body

--strip is repeatable, interleaved with paths (find-style): each occurrence sets the strip set for the paths that follow. Comma-separated; prefix a category with ! to remove it. all (alias everything) strips all four; none strips nothing.

--ignore=<mode> controls .gitignore filtering and is repeatable, interleaved with paths (find-style). Each occurrence sets the mode for the paths that follow:

Mode	Effect
enable	Respect .gitignore — only non-ignored (default)
disable	Include ignored files too (everything)
reverse	Only .gitignored files

The default (before any --ignore) is enable. Query files can set their own mode with the ignore: field (see docs/queries.md).

Category gating applies to every supported language — test and import rules in each built-in (or custom) rule file declare which category gates them, so the same flags work uniformly.

--stats prints original-vs-compacted line counts (code / comments / blanks) and an approximate token figure (~tokens). That figure is a dependency-free estimate (~bytes / 4), not a model tokenizer count — use it for relative comparison only.

How it compares

Two architectures. contasty is a one-shot stripper: walk the tree, elide bodies in place, print one document. The same-shape peer is repomix --compress. Each is stronger at different things.

	contasty	repomix --compress
Languages with body elision	18 of 27 built-ins	16, incl. Vue
Add a language without a rebuild	yes — dynamic grammar + rules	no
Extend / override strip rules	yes — contasty.toml	no (fixed queries)
Gate comments (keep / drop)	yes — per-language toggle	yes — removeComments
Gate imports (keep / drop)	yes — --strip=imports	no (imports kept)
Gate tests (keep / drop)	yes — --strip=tests	no
Stripped-region output	valid empty bodies, reparseable	⋮---- placeholder markers
Optional reformat of result	yes — Topiary / shell-out	no
Runtime	single static binary	Node.js
Output formats	Markdown, JSON	XML, Markdown, JSON, plain
Token counting	no (by design)	yes, multi-tokenizer
Secret scanning	no	yes
Git integration (diffs, history)	no	yes
Remote repos (clone by URL)	no (local only)	yes
MCP server	no (CLI; agents shell out)	yes

ctx also extracts signatures, but only for PHP. For interactive, query-on-demand context, see aider's repo map or jCodeMunch-MCP — a different approach: an index the agent queries live, not a static document.

Configuration

Drop a contasty.toml in your project root to tune compaction thresholds, set default category inclusion, register dynamic grammars, and extend or override per-language rules. All fields are optional. See docs/languages.md and docs/custom-rules.md.

Category stripping can be set cross-language under [strip] and refined per language under [languages.<lang>]:

strip = ["comments", "imports", "body"]   # cross-language defaults

[languages.rust]
strip = ["comments", "body"]              # keep imports for Rust only

CLI --strip overrides config for all languages. Config loads first; CLI wins.

Optional per-language post-strip reformatting (cosmetic, off by default) is configured with the reformat key — embedded Topiary or a shell-out command. See docs/reformatting.md.

Adding a language

contasty matches AST nodes with ast-grep rules, so a language is data, not code.

• Built-in: drop a rule file at src/lang/rules/<lang>.yml (embedded at build time) and register the language in Registry::new. No per-language matching logic in Rust.
• Dynamic grammar: for a language ast-grep does not bundle, supply a compiled native tree-sitter grammar (.so) plus a rule file and register it under [languages.<lang>] with a libraryPath in contasty.toml — no rebuild.
• Extend / override: point an existing language at a user rule file with the extend / override key of its [languages.<lang>] entry to append to (extend) or replace (override) its embedded rules.

The rule file format, dynamic .so grammars, JSON Schema, and editor integration are documented in docs/languages.md; rule extend/override in docs/custom-rules.md.

Development

Prerequisites: Nix with flakes enabled.

direnv allow         # or: nix develop

just outdatty-update # one-time: create outdatty.lock, then commit it
just check           # fmt + clippy + tests + file-size + drift check
just build
just test
just cover           # code coverage (70% minimum)
just fmt             # format code

outdatty gates files that must stay in sync (see outdatty.yaml): just check fails when a source changes but its dependents were not re-confirmed. Update them, then just outdatty-update.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for coding conventions.

License

MIT