redcon MCP server

Redcon

Deterministic context budgeting for AI coding agents

Stop sending agents 200k tokens of irrelevant code. Redcon scores, compresses, and packs repo context so your agent gets what it actually needs.

Install - Quick Start - How It Works - Docs

The Problem

AI coding agents burn tokens on irrelevant context. You either:

• Dump the whole repo and pay for 200k input tokens per request, or
• Let the agent grep blindly and waste tool calls figuring out where to look

Redcon solves both. It ranks files by task relevance, compresses them with language-aware strategies (full, snippet, symbol extraction, summary), and packs the result under your token budget. Deterministic, local-first, no embeddings. One MCP server covers Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline and Zed; a plain CLI covers CI. Measured on this repository it cuts input tokens by more than 83% at the same task coverage (methodology).

Punch above your plan

On a flat subscription - Claude Pro/Max, Cursor, GitHub Copilot - the token bill isn't what stings, the usage limit is. Redcon cuts the tokens each task needs, so the same plan covers far more work before you hit the weekly wall. Same subscription, more runway.

It stretches the budget you already pay for, and reports exactly how much it saved.

Install

Option 1: VS Code Extension (easiest)

1. Install Redcon - Context Budget from the marketplace
2. Open the Redcon sidebar, click Install & Set Up
3. Reload window. Done.

The extension installs the CLI via pip, registers the MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf, and gives you a sidebar with budget analytics, file rankings, and compression dashboards.

Option 2: CLI + MCP Server

pip install "redcon[mcp]"
redcon init                      # creates redcon.toml + registers MCP

The init command auto-configures MCP for Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf, plus VS Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Junie CLI, Cline and Zed when they are detected, so your AI agent can call redconrank, redconsearch, redconcompress, and redconbudget as native tools. It also writes a short AGENTS.md section that tells agents to prefer these tools for context selection.

Option 3: CLI only

pip install redcon
redcon init --no-mcp

Quick Start

# Rank files relevant to a task
redcon plan "add rate limiting to auth API" --repo .

# Pack context under a token budget
redcon pack "refactor payment flow" --repo . --max-tokens 30000

# Compare compression strategies
redcon benchmark "add caching" --repo .

# Audit a PR for context growth
redcon pr-audit --repo . --base origin/main --head HEAD

Output goes to run.json (machine-readable) and run.md (human-readable). Use them in CI, or feed the compressed context directly into your agent.

For a full end-to-end walkthrough on a realistic service repo (plan, pack, validate, with deterministic output), see examples/service-repo.

How It Works

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.