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context-mode

Local plugin for 10 coding agents that runs tool calls in a sandbox, indexes full output in SQLite FTS5 and returns only what the agent asks for — ~99% fewer bytes in context, zero telemetry.

33,559 2,306 JavaScript NOASSERTIONupdated yesterday
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Curator's take

Use it when long sessions die from tool-output bloat (logs, test runs, fetched pages) and you want the agent to search output rather than read it, across Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more. Skip it if you need an OSI license (it's ELv2, source-available) or your agent rarely produces large outputs; the hosted Gateway is a separate paid product, not needed for the plugin.

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README.md2 min read

Context Mode

A free, local plugin for 10 coding agents. It keeps tool output out of your agent's context window and keeps all usage data on your machine. The plugin is free forever.

npm downloads GitHub stars Discord License: ELv2

33K GitHub stars · 683K npm downloads (read 2026-11-01, stats.json) · on the Hacker News front page and GitHub Trending: charts and sources

The Context Mode plugin is free and local, with its source open on GitHub. Context Mode Gateway is a separate hosted service with its own account and subscription. It takes the same idea from tool output to the whole conversation: Gateway Recall keeps long sessions searchable, and Gateway Memory shares what your agents learn across sessions and tools. See how the Gateway works

Context Mode plugin: free and local, zero telemetry, the plugin keeps your data on your machine. Bench of 2026-11-01: 99.4% of output bytes saved (median of 36 rows with 10 KB or more of raw output). A full debugging session (row g-session-total): 281,261 B raw to 3,266 B in context, about 70K to 817 tokens (an estimate at 4 B per token). Resume after compaction (row e-long-session): a 442,893 B transcript to a 2,019 B block, about 111K to 505 tokens (an estimate). Runs in 10 coding agents with 9 MCP tools.

Contents: Why · Adoption · Install · Try it · Use cases · Benchmarks · How it works · Tools · Security and privacy · Context Mode Gateway · License · Community

Why

A coding agent reads files, runs commands and fetches pages, and every result goes into its context window. The Context Mode plugin runs that work in a local sandbox, keeps the full output in a SQLite index on your machine, and gives the agent the part it asks for.

  • The plugin is free forever. Use it at home and at work, free of charge, under a source-available license.
  • Runs on your machine. The hooks, the sandbox and search run as local processes next to your agent.
  • The plugin keeps your data on your machine. Every index lives in ~/.context-mode: one context.db per project.
  • Zero telemetry. The plugin keeps all usage data on your machine. Security and privacy lists each network call it makes.
  • Works offline after install. Sandbox runs, file indexing and search use local SQLite and your own runtimes.
  • Thinking in Code. The agent writes a short script instead of reading the data, and only what the script prints reaches the context: see How it works, step 5.
  • Small replies. On the 36 bench rows with 10 KB or more of raw output, the plugin's median reply is 99.4% smaller than the raw output.

Adoption: stars and npm downloads