Compression Strategies

Laconic applies eight independent strategies. Each targets a specific type of markdown structure that costs tokens but carries no semantic value.

Whitespace Normalization

Always on. Cannot be disabled.

• Strips trailing spaces from every line
• Collapses three or more consecutive blank lines down to two

This is the lowest-impact strategy but applies universally.

Table Compaction

On by default. Disable with --no-tables.

Converts markdown pipe tables to compact CSV:

Before:

| Name   | Role       | Status  |
|--------|------------|---------|
| Alice  | Engineer   | Active  |
| Bob    | Designer   | On Leave|

After:

Name,Role,Status
Alice,Engineer,Active
Bob,Designer,On Leave

The separator row is removed entirely. Padding spaces inside cells are trimmed.

Tradeoff: Column alignment is lost. LLMs parse CSV natively, but the output is less human-readable. Use --no-tables when human readability of the compressed output matters.

HTML Table Conversion

On by default. Disable with --no-html.

Converts <table> HTML to the same compact CSV format:

Before:

<table>
  <tr><th>Name</th><th>Value</th></tr>
  <tr><td>timeout</td><td>30s</td></tr>
</table>

After:

Name,Value
timeout,30s

HTML Cleanup

On by default. Disable with --no-html.

Removes decorative HTML that carries no semantic weight:

• Strips style="..." attributes
• Strips align="..." attributes
• Unwraps <div> and </div> tags (keeps inner content)

Does not touch <code>, <pre>, <a>, or any semantic HTML.

Badge Stripping

On by default. Disable with --no-badges.

Removes shield.io / badge images that are purely visual:

Before:

[![Build Status](https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/user/repo/ci.yml)](...)
[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg)](...)

After:

(empty — both lines removed)

Badges are meaningful to humans scanning a GitHub page but carry zero information for an LLM processing the document’s content.

Heading Normalization

Always on.

Strips trailing # characters from ATX headings:

Before:

## Configuration ##
### Options ###

After:

## Configuration
### Options

Minimal savings, but consistent normalization.

Code Fence Compaction

Always on.

Removes common leading indentation from code blocks without changing the code’s meaning:

Before:

```python
    def hello():
        print("world")
```

After:

```python
def hello():
    print("world")
```

The relative indentation is preserved. Only the common prefix is removed.

URL Deduplication

Off by default. Enable with --url-dedup.

Converts repeated or long inline URLs to reference-style links:

Before:

See [the docs](https://example.com/very/long/path/to/documentation).
Also check [the API](https://example.com/very/long/path/to/documentation).

After:

See [the docs][1].
Also check [the API][1].

[1]: https://example.com/very/long/path/to/documentation

This is off by default because it changes the link style, which some workflows may not want. Enable it when you have documents with many repeated URLs.

Strategy Selection Guide