Laconic
Maximum meaning, minimum tokens.
Laconic compresses markdown documents for LLM workflows by applying lossless syntactic transformations. It strips decorative noise — badge images, padded tables, HTML wrappers, redundant whitespace — that costs tokens but carries no semantic value.
Named after the Spartans of Laconia, famous for expressing maximum meaning with minimum words. When Philip II of Macedon threatened “If I invade Laconia, I will raze Sparta,” the Spartans replied: “If.”
What It Does
Laconic removes structure that LLMs don’t need to understand your document:
| Before | After | Why |
|---|---|---|
[](...) | (removed) | Badges are visual, not semantic |
| Col1 | Col2 | with separator rows | Col1,Col2 | CSV is more token-efficient |
<div style="padding: 20px">content</div> | content | Decorative HTML wrappers |
| Three blank lines | One blank line | Whitespace normalization |
| Repeated inline URLs | Reference-style links | URL deduplication |
What It Never Touches
- Prose text
- Code blocks (contents preserved exactly)
- Headings (structure preserved)
- Lists
- Anything that carries meaning
Three Ways to Use It
- CLI —
laconic compress README.md - Rust library —
laconic_core::compress(&text, &config) - MCP server — Agents call
compress_markdownas a tool
Pick the one that fits your workflow. The next pages walk through each.