Aphrodite
CCR compression proxy + absorptive preview pipeline for Hermes Agent. Up to 610× compression on the standard corpus (132× overall), ~10 ms end-to-end, type-aware classifier, TOML-driven, opt-in config auto-reload.
One binary. Zero dependencies. Millions of tokens saved.
The problem
Every file read, build, code search, or browser open floods the agent's context with raw output - compilation logs, accessibility trees, JSON blobs. The agent spends its budget reading noise instead of reasoning.
Aphrodite intercepts output before it reaches the LLM and replaces it with a compact, structured preview. The agent sees ~15 tokens of metadata instead of hundreds - and retrieves the full content only when it actually needs it.
The pipeline
- 1. Classify. A type-aware classifier names the content (build output, diff, JSON, browser snapshot...). Classification alone takes 40-123 ns.
- 2. Preview. An enriched, type-aware preview is rendered.
- 3. Store. Full content lands in CCR storage (BLAKE3, SQLite or in-memory) behind a
<<<CCR:hash|type|size>>>marker. - 4. Decide. The agent retrieves only when needed, via
aphrodite_retrieve(hash).
Aphrodite reaches the agent two ways: as a native Hermes plugin with hook-level interception (no API round-trip), or as a reverse proxy for any OpenAI-compatible client, compressing Chat Completions responses through CCR with a tool relay.
The numbers
| Content type | Compression |
|---|---|
| Browser snapshot | 416× |
| Build output | 140× |
| JSON | 40× |
| Git diff | 23× |
| Terminal | 20× |
| Median | 23× fewer tokens on tool output |
Measured in the real world across 200 Hermes sessions (6,843 API calls, Sep 18-20, 2026): 156,342,817 tokens saved of 581,302,405 expanded - 26.9% (the exact percentage is a band: ~24-33% across a 3.0-4.5 chars/token sensitivity range, centered ~27%). 183 of 200 sessions saved; tool-heavy workloads scale to 20-25%, pure-tool to 76-82%.
Install
The recommended path is the Hermes plugin; the proxy binary also installs standalone via Cargo. Full instructions on the setup page.
git clone https://github.com/PlayForm/Aphrodite-Hermes.git
cd Aphrodite-Hermes
bash download.sh
hermes plugins enable aphrodite