treezip

Compressed directory trees for AI prompts. Zero dependencies.

tree output is verbose — treezip compresses it using brace grouping, directory collapsing, and truncation so you can fit more codebase structure into fewer tokens.

Install

npm install -g treezip

Or run directly:

npx treezip ./my-project

Before / After

tree (43 lines):

my-project/
├── docs
│   ├── api-reference.md
│   ├── contributing.md
│   └── getting-started.md
├── package.json
├── public
│   └── images
│       ├── avatar.png
│       ├── background.png
│       ├── badge.png
│       ├── banner.png
│       ├── feature.png
│       ├── hero.png
│       ├── icon.png
│       ├── logo.png
│       ├── pattern.png
│       ├── placeholder.png
│       └── screenshot.png
├── README.md
├── src
│   ├── App.tsx
│   ├── components
│   │   ├── Button.tsx
│   │   ├── Card.tsx
│   │   ├── Header.tsx
│   │   ├── Modal.tsx
│   │   └── Sidebar.tsx
│   ├── hooks
│   │   ├── useApi.ts
│   │   ├── useAuth.ts
│   │   └── useTheme.ts
│   ├── index.ts
│   └── utils
│       ├── api.ts
│       ├── auth.ts
│       ├── format.ts
│       └── validate.ts
├── tests
│   ├── Button.test.tsx
│   ├── Card.test.tsx
│   ├── Header.test.tsx
│   ├── Modal.test.tsx
│   ├── setup.ts
│   └── Sidebar.test.tsx
└── tsconfig.json

treezip (17 lines):

my-project/
├── {.gitignore,README.md,package.json,tsconfig.json}
├── docs/{api-reference,contributing,getting-started}.md
├── public/images/{avatar,background,badge,banner,feature,...}.png
├── src/
│   ├── {App.tsx,index.ts}
│   ├── components/{Button,Card,Header,Modal,Sidebar}.tsx
│   ├── hooks/{useApi,useAuth,useTheme}.ts
│   └── utils/{api,auth,format,validate}.ts
└── tests/
    ├── setup.ts
    └── {Button,Card,Header,Modal,Sidebar}.test.tsx

60% fewer lines. Same information. Every brace group decompresses to exactly one file per entry.

How it works

| Pattern | Meaning | Example | |---|---|---| | {a,b,c}.ext | Siblings sharing an extension | {Button,Card,Modal}.tsx | | {a.x,b.y} | Siblings with different extensions | {README.md,tsconfig.json} | | dir/{stems}.ext | All files in dir share an extension | utils/{api,auth,format}.ts | | dir/file | Single-child directory collapsed | scripts/build.sh | | {a,b,...}.ext | Truncated group (more files exist) | images/{logo,hero,...}.png |

Compression rules

1. Mixed directories (files + subdirs): all files grouped into one {...} set
2. Files-only directories: grouped by shared extension (compound-aware: .test.ts, .config.js)
3. Inline collapse: directories that compress to a single item shown inline
4. Single-child chain: a/b/c.txt when each level has one child
5. Truncation: groups with >8 items show the first 5 + ...

Default ignores

node_modules, .git, .DS_Store, __pycache__, .pnpm

Output header

Every output includes a self-documenting header:

# COMPRESSED FILE TREE — AI READ GUIDE
# {a,b,c}.ext  → siblings sharing extension   | scripts/f.js → collapsed single-child dir
# {...}.ext     → truncated list (more exist)  | decompress: expand braces × each entry = 1 path

This lets LLMs interpret the format without extra instructions.

Programmatic API

import { scan, compress, render, countNodes } from "treezip";

const tree = scan("./my-project");
const compressed = compress(tree);
const { dirs, files } = countNodes(tree);
const output = render("my-project/", compressed);
console.log(output);

License

MIT