ephew

Local verbosity-toggle proxy for the Anthropic API. Run it, point any Claude client (Claude Code, the anthropic SDK, curl) at 127.0.0.1, press ⇧⌘E to cycle the response-length mode, and watch Claude's reply shape change — all without editing prompts by hand.

Why

Claude Code (and every other Anthropic-API client) has no fast way to toggle response verbosity mid-conversation. Today you retype "one sentence" / "yes-or-no" / "as a table" over and over. Ephew injects the right directive into each outgoing /v1/messages request based on a mode you pick with a hotkey — zero prompt editing, zero context switching, a tiny glyph in the menu bar so you always know which mode is active.

Install

brew tap etherops/funstuff
brew install ephew

Requires Python 3.12+ and macOS (the menu-bar tray + global hotkey are macOS-only).

For development setup (git clone + editable install + tests), see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Run

ephew

You'll see a banner:

ephew 0.1.0 running on http://127.0.0.1:47821
point your Anthropic client at this proxy:
  export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:47821
hotkey: ⇧⌘E to cycle modes

Then in any terminal:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:47821
claude "is python compiled"

The request flows through ephew → api.anthropic.com → back to your client. Claude's reply shape now depends on the active mode.

Modes

Cycle with ⇧⌘E, or click a mode in the menu-bar dropdown. The title reads ephew <glyph> so you always know which mode is active:

Glyph	Mode	Response shape
-x	none	Passthrough — no modification
-c	concise	Fewest words possible; one-sentence cap
-p	paragraph	2 paragraphs max; biased toward the shortest response that fits
-v	verbose	Deep — reasoning, tradeoffs, edge cases (skip padding)
-t	table	Markdown table only, no prose

Startup mode is always none. Cycle order: none → concise → paragraph → verbose → table → (wrap).

Per-request override

Append a flag to the very end of any prompt to one-shot a specific mode without touching the tray:

claude "explain go channels -v"        # forces verbose for this request
claude "list HTTP status codes -t"     # forces table
claude "summarize the rfc -p"          # forces a single dense paragraph
claude "is python interpreted -c"      # forces concise
claude "just chat -x"                  # forces passthrough

The flag (-x/-c/-p/-v/-t or the long forms --none/--concise/--paragraph/--verbose/--table) is stripped before the request is forwarded; the active tray mode is not modified. Each override is logged with mode=<chosen> override=<flag> so you can audit.

Flags

• --port N — override the default proxy port (47821). Also honors the EPHEW_PORT environment variable.
• --verbose / -v — extend the per-request log line with the full directive text, and annotate each tray menu item with its directive in parens.
• --version — print version and exit.
• --help — print help including the modes table.

How it works

Ephew is a local HTTP proxy that impersonates api.anthropic.com on 127.0.0.1. Setting ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL points any Anthropic-compatible client at the proxy. For every POST /v1/messages:

1. Read the active mode from shared state.
2. If the mode has a directive, append it after \n\n to the last user message in the request body. No brackets, no tags — a natural P.S.
3. Forward the (possibly modified) request to real api.anthropic.com.
4. Stream the response (SSE) back to the client unchanged.

The mode is toggled in real time via a global hotkey — Carbon RegisterEventHotKey, no macOS Accessibility permission required — or the menu-bar dropdown. Every mode change logs one line on ephew.state.

Credential safety

Ephew sits between your client and the Anthropic API. The daemon:

• Never reads x-api-key / authorization values into its own context.
• Redacts those header names (case-insensitive) from any log output via a compile-time logging.Filter.
• Never logs request bodies, response bodies, or user message content.
• Logs exactly one line per request: proxy method=POST path=/v1/messages upstream_status=200 bytes=12345 mode=concise.
• Under --verbose, extends that line with the directive (ephew's own string, not the user's content).

Run at login (optional)

Keep ephew running across logins with launchctl. Create ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.patrickkennel.ephew.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.patrickkennel.ephew</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/ephew/.venv/bin/ephew</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key><true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key><true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/ephew.log</string>
  </dict>
</plist>

Load: launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.patrickkennel.ephew.plist Unload: launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.patrickkennel.ephew.plist

Development

Specs live in specs/. Every feature has a spec-<name>.md covering purpose, public surface, behavior, dependencies, out-of-scope, and verification. The three-phase launch plan is specs/LAUNCH.md. The project workflow is strict: specs → tests → code, in that order, for every change.

pytest                # full suite, no API key or network needed
pytest -v -k modes    # narrow by keyword

License

MIT.