Developer builds CLI tool to redact secrets and count tokens before sending code to LLMs

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Developers routinely paste code files into AI chat tools like ChatGPT or Claude, but this practice risks accidentally exposing API keys and credentials stored in config or environment files. Token limits also pose a problem, as oversized pastes can be silently truncated by models without any warning. To address both issues, a developer built ctxpack, a zero-dependency Node.js CLI tool that scans and redacts secrets, estimates token usage against a target model's context window, and packages a repository into an LLM-ready bundle. The tool respects .gitignore rules, skips binary files, and supports output in markdown, XML, or JSON formats, with presets for Claude, GPT, and Gemini models. Released under the MIT license, ctxpack is freely available on GitHub and can be run directly via npx.

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