Code Minifier

Strips comments, type hints, docstrings, and unnecessary whitespace from source files. Paste the output into LLM context windows — save tokens without losing functional code.

Install

cd minifier
pip install -e .

Quick start

# Single file to stdout
minify app.py

# With stats
minify app.py --stats

# Write to file
minify app.py -o app.min.py

# Process directory
minify src/ --ext .py,.ts

# Pipe mode
cat file.py | minify -l python -

# Force language
minify script.ts --language javascript

Flags

Flag	Effect
--no-types	Keep type hints
--no-docs	Keep docstrings
--no-comments	Keep comments
--stats	Print byte reduction to stderr
-o FILE	Write output to file
-l LANG	Force language (python, javascript, generic)
--ext .py,.ts	Filter by extension in directory mode

Supported languages

Language	Method	Strips
Python	AST (ast.unparse)	Types, docstrings, comments
JavaScript / TypeScript	Regex	Comments, TS types, interfaces, type aliases
Generic (Go, Rust, Ruby, C, Java, Shell, SQL, YAML, ...)	Regex	# comments, // comments, /* */ comments, blank lines

What gets stripped

Python

# Before
from typing import List

def search(query: str, limit: int = 10) -> List[str]:
    """Search the database."""
    results: List[str] = []  # type hint on variable
    return results

# After
def search(query, limit=10):
    results = []
    return results

TypeScript

// Before
interface SearchParams {
  query: string;
  limit: number;
}

function search({ query, limit }: SearchParams): Promise<string[]> {
  const results: string[] = [];
  return results as string[];
}

// After
function search({ query, limit }) {
  const results = [];
  return results;
}