▟Low Load

claude code, tuned for tired eyes

Less to read. Less to track. Less to strain.

A small bundle that makes Claude Code calmer for all-day use. Answers lead with the point and stay short. State moves into a glanceable bar. The terminal gets typography built for fatigue and dyslexia.

install
❯curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jah2488/low-load/main/install.sh | bash

Piping a script into a shell deserves a look first. Read it here.

  • Local only. No network calls, no telemetry.
  • Backs up settings.json; never overwrites your hooks.
  • Pick the pieces you want. Take the output style alone and you have most of it.
claude
❯are the tests passing?   ✗ 1 failing: billing webhook retry (timeout) 41 others green. -> more (stack trace / likely cause)
opus 4.8 · ✦ flint:full · Low Load · ctx 24% · main ✓

the problem

If you spend hours a day across several AI chats, the cost is not the thinking. It is the reading.

Every answer arrives as friendly prose at full terminal width, and you scan all of it to find the one line that matters. Do that a few hundred times a day and you are worn out by an interface, not the work.

If you are dyslexic or have ADHD, the tax is higher. Dense paragraphs, low contrast, and a blinking cursor all pull attention you would rather spend on the problem in front of you.

Low Load is not magic. It is a few config files and one output style, packaged so you can pick the parts that help and skip the rest.

before / after

Same answer. A tenth of the reading.

The output style is the core change. Claude still has the depth. It just leads with the conclusion and offers the rest, instead of pushing all of it every time.

before
Great question! I went ahead and checked the test suite for you. The good news is that almost everything is passing. There is just one test that is currently failing, which is the billing webhook retry test. It looks like it might be related to a timeout. Let me know if you would like me to dig into it further!

~60 words. The answer is in there somewhere.

after
✗ 1 failing: billing webhook retry (timeout) 41 others green. -> more (stack trace / likely cause)

~12 words. Depth one line away.

what's in it

Five small changes and one good companion.

The installer lets you toggle each one. Some need jq or a particular terminal, and it tells you up front what your system supports.

✓

Output style

Answer-first, terse, scannable replies with labeled status glyphs. This is most of the benefit.

core
▦

Status line

One glanceable bar: model, context %, rate limit, branch. Cost is left off on purpose.

needs jq
▤

render skill

Moves long plans, comparison tables, and forms out of the terminal onto a clean local page.

no deps
♪

Sound cues

A soft chime when Claude needs you, another when it finishes. Watch several sessions by ear.

macOS
Aa

Terminal theme

Dyslexia-friendly type for Alacritty, Ghostty, or iTerm2. Gentle contrast, generous spacing.

a terminal
✦

flint

A companion plugin that makes Claude build less and claim less, not just say less. Optional, recommended.

optional

the terminal theme

Typography that lowers the reading load.

Drawn from dyslexia and low-vision research. The same choices this site is built with.

  • ✓
    A legible mono font at a comfortable size, with generous line spacing so lines stop blending together.
  • ✓
    Gentle contrast. Off-black on warm off-white. No pure black on pure white, which halates and strains tired eyes, while keeping high (~12:1) contrast.
  • ✓
    A steady block cursor. Easy to find, no blink to chase.
  • ✓
    Breathing-room padding, so it is easier to find your place after an interruption.
low-load theme
❯git status On branch main Changes not staged for commit: modified: src/billing/webhook.ts modified: src/billing/retry.ts   # warm off-white on off-black, generous leading ❯

A terminal cannot enforce short paragraphs. That part lives in the output style. The theme handles everything your eyes touch: font, spacing, contrast, cursor.

install

One command. You choose what it touches.

The installer is a guided picker, not a take-it-all script. It checks your system, shows what each piece does, and waits for you to toggle before it changes a thing.

install.sh
❯curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jah2488/low-load/main/install.sh | bash   Choose what to install the output style alone is most of the benefit; the rest is gravy   1. [x] Output style (Low Load) 2. [x] Status line 3. [x] render skill 4. [x] Sound cues 5. [x] Terminal theme 6. [x] flint mode (recommended companion)   toggle a number, [a]ll, [n]one, Enter to install, [q]uit:
  1. 1
    It verifies what your system can handle (macOS, jq, which terminals you have) and grays out anything it cannot install.
  2. 2
    You toggle the pieces you want. Sensible defaults are pre-selected.
  3. 3
    It backs up settings.json, merges only the keys it needs, and appends to your hooks rather than replacing them.
  4. 4
    Restart Claude Code, and you are on Low Load. Re-run any time to add or change pieces.

No terminal handy, like a CI shell? It installs the recommended defaults and prints exactly what it did. Prefer to do it by hand? Every piece is a plain file. See the manual steps.