TextFold

TextFold folds Claude Code’s replies to the level of detail you need, with one key: every word, the first sentence or two of each paragraph, just the headings, or the one sentence that answers. Nothing is summarized. Every level is a cut of what Claude wrote, so a fold makes no model call and shows up at once.

The mod is the Claude Code piece of a larger project, the TextFold reader, but it stands alone: it needs no app, no Python and no model connection of its own.

What it does

Press a digit while the prompt is empty, or pick a level in the row above the prompt:

• 1 Full. The reply as written.
• 2 Brief. The first two sentences of each paragraph and the first sentence of every list item, nested ones included. Code blocks and tables up to eight lines stay; longer ones shrink to a one-line placeholder such as ⋯ 12 lines of code.
• 3 Points. One sentence per paragraph and per top-level list item. Every code block and table becomes a placeholder.
• 4 Outline. The reply’s opening sentence, then each heading with the first sentence of its section.
• 5 Gist. The reply’s first sentence and nothing else.

A cut sentence ends in an ellipsis, and a folded reply closes with a dim line that says where you are, such as Points · 84 of 302 words · 1 unfolds. Short replies stay whole: anything under about 80 words, or a reply the fold would shorten by less than a quarter. Sentence ends in Chinese and Japanese are recognized too.

Sessions start at Full. To start somewhere else, run /config and set Starting level; the keys and the row still change it during the session.

Install

Needs Claude Code 2.1.287 or later.

claude plugin marketplace add chenxiachan/textfold
claude plugin install textfold@textfold

The author documents it in the terminal and in the Code tab of the Desktop app. To try a clone for one session without installing it, start claude --plugin-dir textfold/plugins/textfold. Then ask Claude something that needs a long answer and press 3; 1 brings every word back.

How it works

The fold works because Claude writes for it. The mod hooks prompt.compose and adds a section of about a hundred words to the session’s system prompt. It asks Claude to open each reply with a sentence that answers or says what it did, to open every paragraph and list item with a sentence that states its point on its own, and to give a reply longer than four paragraphs a few headings. It also tells Claude to change only the order of what it writes, not the content or the length. A fold then keeps the start of each block, so what you read at Points is the sentence Claude chose to put first.

The display side is ui.render. On each assistant message the module cuts the text to your level and hands it to Claude Code’s own renderer, so Markdown draws as usual, then adds the count line. Above the prompt it draws the level row with the hotkeys 1 to 5. Only what you see changes; the reply itself is not edited. The cut is string processing inside the module: no network calls, no files written, no second model.

What you pay is the section itself, sent with every request of the session, and one fresh start of the prompt cache in the session where you turn the mod on. The author’s own advice is to check on your work that Claude answers as well as before, since the section changes how it orders a reply.

Limitations

• The VS Code extension’s chat panel and claude -p draw nothing of a mod. The section still reaches Claude there, so replies come point first, but nothing folds.
• A fold keeps whatever Claude put first. A paragraph that opens with setup folds to the setup.
• Outline and Gist drop code and tables entirely.

The rest of TextFold

Most of the repository is a reader for papers, web pages, PDFs, Office files and e-books, shipped as a desktop app for macOS and Windows or as the Python package textfold. It also folds to five levels, but they work differently: there they are Full, Brief, Key, Takeaway and Topic, and from Key down a model writes them. The reader can use the Claude Code on your computer as that model, and python3 -m textfold get hands an agent a document one level at a time. The same repository carries an extension that folds Pi’s replies with the mod’s engine. The mod needs none of this.