ctx-packr 0.1.1__tar.gz

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+ __pycache__/
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+ *.pyc
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+
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+ # Packaging build artifacts
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+ build/
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+ dist/
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+ *.egg-info/
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+
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+ # Virtual environments
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+ .venv/
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+
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+ # uv's resolved environment lock. Not committed: this is a library, so users
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+ # resolve their own versions. Delete this line if you ever want it pinned.
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+ uv.lock
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+
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+ # Local run output
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+ bundle*.md
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+ manifest.json
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+ MIT License
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+
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+ Copyright (c) 2026 Muhammad Shaheer
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+
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+ Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
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+ of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
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+ in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
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+ to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
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+ copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
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+ furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
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+
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+ The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
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+ copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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+
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+ THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
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+ IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
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+ FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
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+ AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
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+ LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
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+ OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
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+ SOFTWARE.
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+ Metadata-Version: 2.5
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+ Name: ctx-packr
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+ Version: 0.1.1
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+ Summary: A stdlib-only CLI that packs the most relevant files of a codebase into a token-budgeted markdown bundle
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+ Project-URL: Homepage, https://github.com/shaheersaifi07-prog/ctxpack
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+ Project-URL: Repository, https://github.com/shaheersaifi07-prog/ctxpack
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+ Project-URL: Issues, https://github.com/shaheersaifi07-prog/ctxpack/issues
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+ Author: shaheersaifi07-prog
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+ License-Expression: MIT
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+ License-File: LICENSE
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+ Keywords: cli,codebase,context,llm,packing,tokens
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+ Classifier: Development Status :: 3 - Alpha
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+ Classifier: Environment :: Console
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+ Classifier: Intended Audience :: Developers
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+ Classifier: Operating System :: OS Independent
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+ Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3
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+ Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10
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+ Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11
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+ Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12
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+ Classifier: Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13
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+ Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: Pre-processors
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+ Requires-Python: >=3.10
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+ Description-Content-Type: text/markdown
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+
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+ # `ctx-packr`
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+
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+ A stdlib-only Python CLI that selects the most relevant files from a codebase for a given task and packs them into a token-budgeted markdown bundle.
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+
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+ ## Why `ctx-packr`?
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+
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+ Several tools occupy nearby space. The difference is not quality — it is which part of
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+ the problem each one solves.
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+
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+ | Tool | Approach | What it lacks vs `ctx-packr` |
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+ |---|---|---|
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+ | `ctxpack` | Config-driven file selection, with `init` and `watch` commands | No relevance ranking against a stated task |
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+ | `context-packer` | Smart filtering of build artifacts and binaries, plus a visual project tree | No relevance ranking against a stated task |
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+ | `llm-ctxpack` | Priority-based packing into a token budget | Does not walk a codebase; the caller supplies the chunks |
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+ | `contextcram` | Priority-based packing into a token budget | Does not walk a codebase; the caller supplies the chunks |
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+ | `ctx-pack` (Rust) | Versioned bidirectional patch/replace | Solves a different problem — not context packing |
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+
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+ `ctx-packr` combines four things that otherwise appear separately: it walks a real
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+ codebase, ranks what it finds against a specific stated task, enforces a hard token
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+ budget, and has zero runtime dependencies. Ranking uses camelCase-aware keyword
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+ scoring, with bonuses for entry-point filenames and for files whose `def`/`class` names
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+ match the task, offset by a penalty for directory depth. When the budget is too small
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+ for the full bundle, the output degrades step by step — dropping the contents table,
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+ then the summary header — rather than failing.
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+
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+ *Comparison reflects these projects as of September 2026.*
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+
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+ ## Requirements
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+
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+ - Python 3.10+
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+ - No third-party packages — `ctx-packr` has zero runtime dependencies
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+
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+ ## Install
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ pip install ctx-packr
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+ ```
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+
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+ That puts a `ctx-packr` command on your PATH:
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ ctx-packr --path sample --task "understand the auth flow" --budget 2000 --out bundle.md --manifest manifest.json
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+ ```
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+
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+ > **Note on naming.** You install `ctx-packr`, but the importable module is `ctxpack`:
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+ >
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+ > ```python
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+ > import ctxpack
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+ > ```
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+ >
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+ > The two differ because a hyphen is not legal in a Python identifier. This is the
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+ > same split used by `beautifulsoup4` → `bs4` and `python-dateutil` → `dateutil`.
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+
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+ ## Quick Start (from a clone, no install)
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ git clone https://github.com/shaheersaifi07-prog/ctxpack.git
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+ cd ctxpack
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+
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+ # Run straight from the source tree
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+ python -m ctxpack --path sample --task "understand the auth flow" --budget 2000 --out bundle.md --manifest manifest.json
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+
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+ # View results
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+ cat bundle.md
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+ cat manifest.json
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+ ```
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+
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+ The source lives in `src/`, so running from a clone needs that directory importable — either `pip install -e .` once, or prefix the command with `PYTHONPATH=src` (`$env:PYTHONPATH="src"` in PowerShell).
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+
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+ If `--out` is omitted, the bundle prints to stdout. If `--manifest` is omitted, a one-line summary like `used 521/2000 tokens, 5 included, 0 excluded` goes to stderr.
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+
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+ ## CLI Usage
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+
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+ ```
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+ ctx-packr --path <folder> --task "<desc>" --budget <int> [--out <file>] [--manifest <file>]
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+ ```
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+
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+ | Flag | Required | Description |
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+ |---|---|---|
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+ | `--path` | Yes | Target folder (must exist and be readable) |
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+ | `--task` | Yes | Free-text description of what you're looking for |
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+ | `--budget` | Yes | Max tokens for the entire rendered bundle (integer > 0) |
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+ | `--out` | No | Write bundle to this file; omitted = stdout |
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+ | `--manifest` | No | Write JSON manifest; omitted = one-line stderr |
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+
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+ **Exit codes:** `0` success, `1` invalid args, `2` bad path. Errors are a single human-readable line on stderr — no tracebacks.
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+
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+ ## Example
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ ctx-packr --path sample --task "auth and api" --budget 2000
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+ ```
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+
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+ Produces a markdown bundle like this (truncated for display):
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+
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+ ````
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+ ## src/auth.py
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+ ```
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+ def login(username: str, password: str) -> bool:
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+ if not username or not password:
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+ return False
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+ return _verify_credentials(username, password)
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+ ```
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+ ````
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+
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+ And if `--manifest` is given, a JSON file:
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+
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+ ```json
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+ {
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+ "budget": 2000,
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+ "used": 521,
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+ "included": [
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+ {"path": "tests/test_auth.py", "tokens": 69, "reason": "fits within budget"},
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+ {"path": "src/auth.py", "tokens": 104, "reason": "fits within budget"},
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+ {"path": "src/api.py", "tokens": 111, "reason": "fits within budget"}
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+ ],
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+ "excluded": [
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+ {"path": "package-lock.json", "reason": "lockfile shape detected"}
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+ ]
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+ }
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+ ```
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+
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+ Every file under `--path` appears exactly once — included with reason and token count, or excluded with reason.
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+
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+ ## How It Works
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+
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+ 1. **Walk** — recursive directory walk with 4 structural noise detectors (binary content, lockfile shape, dependency trees, build artifacts). No name blacklists.
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+ 2. **Rank** — tokenizes the task (camelCase-aware), scores files by keyword overlap with path and content, applies an entrypoint bonus and a depth penalty.
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+ 3. **Pack** — greedily fills the token budget. Files that don't fully fit get a 70/30 head-and-tail truncation with a marker line; files that can't be meaningfully truncated (<200 tokens) are excluded cleanly.
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+ 4. **Render** — assembles markdown sections. Optionally includes a project tree overview for folders with 15+ relevant files (capped at 5% of budget).
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+ 5. **Manifest** — JSON accounting for every file. `used` is the exact token count of the rendered bundle, verified by re-tokenizing before writing.
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+
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+ See [SPEC.md](SPEC.md) for the full spec, [CLARIFY.md](.specify/memory/clarify.md) for design decisions, and [PLAN.md](.specify/memory/plan.md) for the implementation plan.
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+
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+ ## Known Limitations
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+
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+ - **No semantic understanding.** Matching is keyword-based with camelCase splitting — a task about "authentication" won't match a file about "login" unless the words overlap. This is an accepted tradeoff for an offline, stdlib-only, deterministic tool.
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+ - **No language-aware parsing.** No import graphs, AST analysis, or per-language heuristics. Path and content keyword overlap is the only signal.
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+ - **No incremental runs.** Every invocation does a fresh walk from scratch — no caching between runs.
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+ - **No `.gitignore` support.** Hidden test folders may contain files a developer would typically exclude. The tool treats all readable files equally; structural noise is caught by content-shape detection, not ignore files.
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+
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+ This is a **Spec-Driven Development** project. The spec was written before any code, and all decisions are documented in the spec chain under `.specify/memory/`.
@@ -0,0 +1,142 @@
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+ # `ctx-packr`
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+
3
+ A stdlib-only Python CLI that selects the most relevant files from a codebase for a given task and packs them into a token-budgeted markdown bundle.
4
+
5
+ ## Why `ctx-packr`?
6
+
7
+ Several tools occupy nearby space. The difference is not quality — it is which part of
8
+ the problem each one solves.
9
+
10
+ | Tool | Approach | What it lacks vs `ctx-packr` |
11
+ |---|---|---|
12
+ | `ctxpack` | Config-driven file selection, with `init` and `watch` commands | No relevance ranking against a stated task |
13
+ | `context-packer` | Smart filtering of build artifacts and binaries, plus a visual project tree | No relevance ranking against a stated task |
14
+ | `llm-ctxpack` | Priority-based packing into a token budget | Does not walk a codebase; the caller supplies the chunks |
15
+ | `contextcram` | Priority-based packing into a token budget | Does not walk a codebase; the caller supplies the chunks |
16
+ | `ctx-pack` (Rust) | Versioned bidirectional patch/replace | Solves a different problem — not context packing |
17
+
18
+ `ctx-packr` combines four things that otherwise appear separately: it walks a real
19
+ codebase, ranks what it finds against a specific stated task, enforces a hard token
20
+ budget, and has zero runtime dependencies. Ranking uses camelCase-aware keyword
21
+ scoring, with bonuses for entry-point filenames and for files whose `def`/`class` names
22
+ match the task, offset by a penalty for directory depth. When the budget is too small
23
+ for the full bundle, the output degrades step by step — dropping the contents table,
24
+ then the summary header — rather than failing.
25
+
26
+ *Comparison reflects these projects as of September 2026.*
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+
28
+ ## Requirements
29
+
30
+ - Python 3.10+
31
+ - No third-party packages — `ctx-packr` has zero runtime dependencies
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+
33
+ ## Install
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+
35
+ ```bash
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+ pip install ctx-packr
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+ ```
38
+
39
+ That puts a `ctx-packr` command on your PATH:
40
+
41
+ ```bash
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+ ctx-packr --path sample --task "understand the auth flow" --budget 2000 --out bundle.md --manifest manifest.json
43
+ ```
44
+
45
+ > **Note on naming.** You install `ctx-packr`, but the importable module is `ctxpack`:
46
+ >
47
+ > ```python
48
+ > import ctxpack
49
+ > ```
50
+ >
51
+ > The two differ because a hyphen is not legal in a Python identifier. This is the
52
+ > same split used by `beautifulsoup4` → `bs4` and `python-dateutil` → `dateutil`.
53
+
54
+ ## Quick Start (from a clone, no install)
55
+
56
+ ```bash
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+ git clone https://github.com/shaheersaifi07-prog/ctxpack.git
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+ cd ctxpack
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+
60
+ # Run straight from the source tree
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+ python -m ctxpack --path sample --task "understand the auth flow" --budget 2000 --out bundle.md --manifest manifest.json
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+
63
+ # View results
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+ cat bundle.md
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+ cat manifest.json
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+ ```
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+
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+ The source lives in `src/`, so running from a clone needs that directory importable — either `pip install -e .` once, or prefix the command with `PYTHONPATH=src` (`$env:PYTHONPATH="src"` in PowerShell).
69
+
70
+ If `--out` is omitted, the bundle prints to stdout. If `--manifest` is omitted, a one-line summary like `used 521/2000 tokens, 5 included, 0 excluded` goes to stderr.
71
+
72
+ ## CLI Usage
73
+
74
+ ```
75
+ ctx-packr --path <folder> --task "<desc>" --budget <int> [--out <file>] [--manifest <file>]
76
+ ```
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+
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+ | Flag | Required | Description |
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+ |---|---|---|
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+ | `--path` | Yes | Target folder (must exist and be readable) |
81
+ | `--task` | Yes | Free-text description of what you're looking for |
82
+ | `--budget` | Yes | Max tokens for the entire rendered bundle (integer > 0) |
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+ | `--out` | No | Write bundle to this file; omitted = stdout |
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+ | `--manifest` | No | Write JSON manifest; omitted = one-line stderr |
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+
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+ **Exit codes:** `0` success, `1` invalid args, `2` bad path. Errors are a single human-readable line on stderr — no tracebacks.
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+
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+ ## Example
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+
90
+ ```bash
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+ ctx-packr --path sample --task "auth and api" --budget 2000
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+ ```
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+
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+ Produces a markdown bundle like this (truncated for display):
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+
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+ ````
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+ ## src/auth.py
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+ ```
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+ def login(username: str, password: str) -> bool:
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+ if not username or not password:
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+ return False
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+ return _verify_credentials(username, password)
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+ ```
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+ ````
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+
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+ And if `--manifest` is given, a JSON file:
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+
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+ ```json
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+ {
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+ "budget": 2000,
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+ "used": 521,
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+ "included": [
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+ {"path": "tests/test_auth.py", "tokens": 69, "reason": "fits within budget"},
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+ {"path": "src/auth.py", "tokens": 104, "reason": "fits within budget"},
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+ {"path": "src/api.py", "tokens": 111, "reason": "fits within budget"}
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+ ],
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+ "excluded": [
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+ {"path": "package-lock.json", "reason": "lockfile shape detected"}
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+ ]
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+ }
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+ ```
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+
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+ Every file under `--path` appears exactly once — included with reason and token count, or excluded with reason.
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+
125
+ ## How It Works
126
+
127
+ 1. **Walk** — recursive directory walk with 4 structural noise detectors (binary content, lockfile shape, dependency trees, build artifacts). No name blacklists.
128
+ 2. **Rank** — tokenizes the task (camelCase-aware), scores files by keyword overlap with path and content, applies an entrypoint bonus and a depth penalty.
129
+ 3. **Pack** — greedily fills the token budget. Files that don't fully fit get a 70/30 head-and-tail truncation with a marker line; files that can't be meaningfully truncated (<200 tokens) are excluded cleanly.
130
+ 4. **Render** — assembles markdown sections. Optionally includes a project tree overview for folders with 15+ relevant files (capped at 5% of budget).
131
+ 5. **Manifest** — JSON accounting for every file. `used` is the exact token count of the rendered bundle, verified by re-tokenizing before writing.
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+
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+ See [SPEC.md](SPEC.md) for the full spec, [CLARIFY.md](.specify/memory/clarify.md) for design decisions, and [PLAN.md](.specify/memory/plan.md) for the implementation plan.
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+
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+ ## Known Limitations
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+
137
+ - **No semantic understanding.** Matching is keyword-based with camelCase splitting — a task about "authentication" won't match a file about "login" unless the words overlap. This is an accepted tradeoff for an offline, stdlib-only, deterministic tool.
138
+ - **No language-aware parsing.** No import graphs, AST analysis, or per-language heuristics. Path and content keyword overlap is the only signal.
139
+ - **No incremental runs.** Every invocation does a fresh walk from scratch — no caching between runs.
140
+ - **No `.gitignore` support.** Hidden test folders may contain files a developer would typically exclude. The tool treats all readable files equally; structural noise is caught by content-shape detection, not ignore files.
141
+
142
+ This is a **Spec-Driven Development** project. The spec was written before any code, and all decisions are documented in the spec chain under `.specify/memory/`.
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+ # specify.md — `ctxpack`
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+
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+ **Written before implementation. Governed by CONSTITUTION.md. This is a graded deliverable, not documentation written after the fact.**
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+
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+ ---
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+
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+ ## 1. CLI Contract
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+
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+ ```
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+ ctxpack --path <folder> --task "<task description>" --budget <int> [--out <file>] [--manifest <file>]
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+ ```
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+
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+ | Flag | Required | Behavior |
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+ |---|---|---|
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+ | `--path` | Yes | Folder to pack. Must exist and be readable. |
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+ | `--task` | Yes | Free-text description of developer intent. Used for ranking. |
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+ | `--budget` | Yes | Max tokens for the **entire rendered bundle**, integer > 0. |
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+ | `--out` | No | Write bundle here. Omitted → stdout. |
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+ | `--manifest` | No | Write manifest JSON here. Omitted → one-line summary to stderr. |
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+
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+ ### Exit Codes
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+
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+ | Code | Meaning |
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+ |---|---|
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+ | `0` | Success. Bundle produced within budget. |
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+ | `1` | Invalid arguments — missing required flag, non-integer/non-positive `--budget`, malformed `--task`. |
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+ | `2` | `--path` does not exist, is not a directory, or is unreadable (permissions). |
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+
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+ Errors print a single human-readable line to stderr. No tracebacks, per Constitution Principle IV.
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+
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+ ### Argument Validation Order
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+ 1. Parse flags → missing required flag = exit 1 immediately, before touching the filesystem.
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+ 2. Validate `--budget` is a positive integer → exit 1 if not.
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+ 3. Validate `--path` exists and is a readable directory → exit 2 if not.
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+ 4. Only then begin the walk.
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+
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+ This order matters: a bad `--budget` should never be masked by a slower path-not-found check.
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+
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+ ---
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+
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+ ## 2. Token Counting
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+
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+ ```python
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+ tokens = math.ceil(len(text) / 4)
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+ ```
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+
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+ Applied to:
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+ - Each individual file's content (for ranking/truncation decisions)
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+ - The **fully rendered bundle** — headers, file path labels, separators, the optional tree diagram, everything that reaches `--out` or stdout
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+
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+ The budget check happens against the final rendered string, not against a running sum of file contents. This catches the case where formatting overhead itself would push the bundle over budget.
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+
53
+ ---
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+
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+ ## 3. Ranking Strategy — Weighted Keyword Overlap
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+
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+ **Decision:** Rank files by a weighted score combining (a) keyword overlap between `--task` and file content/path, (b) a small structural prior, and (c) a path-depth penalty.
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+
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+ ```
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+ score(file) = 3 × path_match_count
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+ + 1 × content_match_count (capped at 20)
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+ + 2 × (file is entrypoint-like: main.py, index.js, __init__.py, README)
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+ - 0.5 × directory_depth
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+ ```
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+
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+ - `--task` is lowercased, split on non-alphanumeric characters, stopwords removed (a small hardcoded stopword list of ~30 English function words — this is not "noise detection," it's tokenization hygiene, and is documented as such).
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+ - `path_match_count`: task keywords found in the file's path/filename (case-insensitive substring match).
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+ - `content_match_count`: task keywords found in file content, capped so one keyword-stuffed file can't dominate purely on repetition.
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+ - Entrypoint bonus: files conventionally likely to explain "what this project does" get a small nudge, because task descriptions are often about behavior, and behavior is usually reachable from an entrypoint.
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+ - Depth penalty: deeply nested files are slightly deprioritized, since top-level and near-top-level files are more often architecturally central.
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+
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+ **Why this over the alternatives considered:**
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+
74
+ | Alternative | Why rejected |
75
+ |---|---|
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+ | Import graph analysis | Requires language-aware parsing per file type (Python imports ≠ JS imports ≠ Go imports). Violates stdlib-only cleanly only for Python; brief implies mixed-language repos. Too much complexity for the time budget, and it silently fails on non-code files (README, config, docs) that are often exactly what's relevant to a task like "understand the auth flow." |
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+ | Pure filename matching | Too brittle — a file named `utils.py` could be the single most task-relevant file and would never surface. |
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+ | File recency (mtime) | Recency correlates with "recently touched," not "relevant to this task." A judge's test folder is likely a static snapshot with meaningless or identical mtimes — this signal would be near-random noise on the actual test set. |
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+ | Pure content keyword count, no path weighting | Rewards keyword-stuffed files (tests, changelogs, generated docs) over structurally central ones. Path weighting is a cheap, dependency-free proxy for "this file is what it says it is." |
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+
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+ **Known weakness, stated up front:** this method has no semantic understanding — a task about "authentication" won't match a file about "login" unless the words overlap. This is an accepted tradeoff for a stdlib-only, offline, deterministic tool. It is not treated as a hidden flaw to discover later; it is the stated boundary of the approach.
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+
83
+ ---
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+
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+ ## 4. Truncation Policy — Smart Head-and-Tail Slice
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+
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+ **Decision:** When a file doesn't fit in the remaining budget, `ctxpack` does not skip it outright and does not blindly take the head. It takes a **head + tail slice** sized to the remaining budget, with a visible truncation marker, provided the file scored high enough to be worth partial inclusion (see threshold below).
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+
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+ - Take roughly 70% of the available token allowance from the start of the file, 30% from the end, joined by a marker line: `... [truncated: N tokens omitted] ...`
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+ - Rationale: file heads usually carry imports, class/function signatures, and top-of-file docstrings; tails often carry `main()` blocks, exports, or closing logic. A pure head-slice biases against exactly the code that shows what a file *does* at runtime.
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+ - **Threshold:** partial inclusion is only attempted if the remaining budget can fit at least 200 tokens of a truncated file. Below that, a partial slice is judgment-free noise (a few import lines and a truncation marker convey nothing) — the file is excluded instead, with reason `"insufficient remaining budget for meaningful partial inclusion (needed ≥200 tokens, had N)"`.
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+
93
+ **Why this over the alternatives considered:**
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+
95
+ | Alternative | Why rejected |
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+ |---|---|
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+ | Always exclude if it doesn't fully fit | Throws away a highly relevant large file entirely in favor of lower-ranked small files, which can produce a worse bundle for the stated task even though it "used the budget efficiently." |
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+ | Always take the head | Cheap and deterministic, but systematically biased against seeing how a file's logic concludes — a real cost for exactly the kind of "understand what this does" tasks the tool exists for. |
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+ | Summarize the file (extractive/heuristic) | Non-trivial to make deterministic and language-agnostic without third-party NLP tooling; risks misrepresenting the file's actual content, which conflicts with Constitution Principle II (silence/misrepresentation is a bug). |
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+
101
+ ---
102
+
103
+ ## 5. Noise Detection — Structural Heuristics, Not a Name Blacklist
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+
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+ **Decision:** Noise is detected by structural signal, not a hardcoded list of filenames, so the approach generalizes beyond `node_modules`/`.git` to noise `ctxpack` has never seen named before.
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+
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+ A file/directory is flagged as noise if **any** of:
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+ 1. **Path contains a VCS or dependency directory marker**: detected by checking for a small set of *structural* markers — a directory containing a `.git` HEAD-like structure, or a directory whose immediate contents look like an installed package tree (a `package.json`-sibling `node_modules`-shaped nesting, i.e., a directory containing hundreds of subdirectories each containing their own manifest-like file). This is a structural detector, not a name check — `node_modules` is caught because of what's inside it, not because of its name (a differently-named vendor directory with the same shape is caught too).
109
+ 2. **File is a lockfile by content shape**: single-file, machine-generated JSON/text with an extremely high ratio of punctuation/digits to words, and a repeating flat structure (long lists of `name@version` or hash-like tokens). Caught by content shape, not filename.
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+ 3. **Binary or non-text content**: detected by attempting a UTF-8 decode on a sample of the file; failure (or a high proportion of non-printable bytes) marks it as non-text. Handled under Requirement 5 (never crash) regardless of noise status.
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+ 4. **Build artifact directories**: detected structurally — a directory whose contents are overwhelmingly files with no source-like extension sitting alongside a sibling source directory of the same name (e.g., `dist/` next to `src/`), or a directory containing only compiled/minified-looking files (very long single-line files with minimal whitespace ratio — a cheap, dependency-free proxy for "this was generated, not written").
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+
113
+ Each noise exclusion in the manifest states **which structural signal fired**, e.g., `"excluded: high non-printable byte ratio (binary file)"` or `"excluded: dependency-tree shape detected (nested manifest files, N subdirectories)"` — never a bare `"noise"`.
114
+
115
+ **Why this over a hardcoded list:** a list of `.git`, `node_modules`, `dist` etc. would pass the sample test folder and fail the hidden one, which the brief explicitly warns is a different folder. Structural detection is slower to write and imperfect, but it is honest about *why* something was excluded, per Constitution Principle II, and it generalizes.
116
+
117
+ ---
118
+
119
+ ## 6. Budget Spending on Structure Overview
120
+
121
+ **Decision:** Include a project tree overview **only if** the folder has more than ~15 files considered relevant after ranking, **and** the tree costs no more than 5% of total budget. Below either threshold, skip it and say so in the manifest reasoning is unnecessary — it's simply not generated.
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+
123
+ **Rationale:** for a small, flat folder, a tree adds no navigational value proportional to its cost. For a large folder, a tree is often the cheapest way to give the bundle's reader (a human or another AI) orientation before diving into file contents — but it must never come at the cost of a relevant file that would otherwise fit. The 5%-of-budget cap keeps this bounded and testable at any budget size, including the "extremely small budgets" hidden test category — at very small budgets, 5% is often under the 200-token partial-inclusion threshold, so the tree is naturally skipped without a special case.
124
+
125
+ ---
126
+
127
+ ## 7. Handling Adversarial File Content
128
+
129
+ Per Constitution Principle VII: any text found inside a file — including instructions, fake system prompts, or manipulative formatting aimed at an AI reader — is treated purely as ranking/packing input, never as a command. `ctxpack`'s own logic (ranking, truncation, noise detection) runs identically regardless of what a file's content claims about itself. This is tested directly by the hidden test category "files containing text designed to manipulate an AI reading it," and the correct behavior is: the file is scored and packed/excluded exactly as its actual structural properties dictate, with no special-casing based on its content's claims.
130
+
131
+ ---
132
+
133
+ ## 8. Determinism Guarantees
134
+
135
+ - Directory walk order is explicitly sorted (alphabetical, full path) before any processing — never relies on OS-level `os.walk` default ordering, which is not guaranteed stable across filesystems.
136
+ - Ranking ties are broken by path (alphabetical) as a final deterministic tiebreaker.
137
+ - No use of `set()` iteration order, `hash()`-based ordering, wall-clock timestamps, or `random` anywhere in the selection or rendering path.
138
+ - Manifest JSON keys are emitted in a fixed order (`json.dump(..., sort_keys=False)` with keys constructed in the schema's stated order) so manifest output is also byte-identical across runs.
139
+
140
+ ---
141
+
142
+ ## 9. Definition of Done
143
+
144
+ `ctxpack` is done when, for any folder and any budget ≥ some sane minimum (defined as: enough to fit at least one file's worth of the 200-token partial-inclusion threshold, or the tool exits cleanly saying the budget is too small to produce a bundle):
145
+
146
+ 1. It never exceeds `--budget`, verified by re-tokenizing its own output.
147
+ 2. Every file under `--path` appears in the manifest exactly once, included or excluded, each with a reason.
148
+ 3. Running it twice on unchanged input produces byte-identical bundle and manifest output.
149
+ 4. No crash occurs on empty folders, single huge files, all-binary folders, or malformed `--task`/`--budget` input — each produces either a valid (possibly empty) bundle or a clean exit-1/exit-2 error.
150
+ 5. Every team member can explain, unprompted, why a specific file was included or excluded in a given run.
151
+
152
+ ---
153
+
154
+ ## 10. Explicit Non-Goals
155
+
156
+ - No semantic/embedding-based relevance (would require a model, violating offline/stdlib constraints).
157
+ - No language-aware parsing (import graphs, AST analysis) — rejected in Section 3, consistent across the spec.
158
+ - No caching or incremental re-runs between invocations — every run is a fresh, from-scratch walk, to keep the determinism guarantee simple to verify.