ChainWeaver + contextweaver: coding-agent token reduction

June 9, 2026 · View on GitHub

ChainWeaver and contextweaver solve different parts of the same coding-agent cost problem and compose cleanly:

  • contextweaver reduces the visible tool-schema and result context an agent's model sees on each turn (a gateway concern).
  • ChainWeaver reduces the number of model-mediated tool steps by compiling deterministic paths into macro-tools (a compilation concern).

Treating them as competing tools is a mistake. Deployed together they attack both axes of token cost: context width and round-trip count.

Architecture

VS Code Copilot / Claude / Cursor / custom coding agent
        ↓
contextweaver gateway          (trims visible schema + results)
        ↓
ChainWeaver FlowServer         (exposes reviewed macro-flows as MCP tools)
        ↓
raw MCP tools / local tools    (kept available as fallback)
  • Expose reviewed, active ChainWeaver macro-flows as first-class MCP tools.
  • Keep low-level raw MCP tools available as a fallback for paths that are not worth compiling (open-ended reasoning, unstable contracts).
  • Route both through the contextweaver gateway so schema/result context stays trimmed regardless of which tool the agent picks.

Why this reduces tokens

A raw agent loop pays, per primitive step, for:

  1. a model-mediated decision (prompt + completion tokens), and
  2. the tool's schema and result occupying the context window.

A compiled macro-flow removes (1) for every internal step — the executor walks the path deterministically with no LLM between steps — and collapses N tool schemas into one macro-tool schema, shrinking (2) as well. The benchmarks/bench_coding_agent_macroflow.py script quantifies both effects for a configurable path length; see CLAIMS.md for the receipts and the explicit non-claims.

The compilation workflow

The Daily Driver guide covers the operator loop end to end:

observe traces → chainweaver traces mine → score → draft-flows → backtest → review → flows promote

Only active, read-only, approval-free flows are exposed by FlowServer by default — see macro-flow safety for the boundary on what is safe to compile.

Boundaries

  • ChainWeaver does not reason between steps; it is a deterministic graph runner, not an agent framework.
  • contextweaver does not compile paths; it routes and trims context.
  • The two share a vendor-neutral trace/telemetry format so a path observed at the gateway can be mined into a ChainWeaver flow.