ccft

ccft - an agentic self improvement tool. A streaming MITM proxy that sits between Claude Code and api.anthropic.com, mutates the request system prompt to your preferences, and writes a per-response token ledger — all while preserving Claude's token-by-token streaming UX byte-for-byte.

Three concrete design properties:

1. One artifact, one location. The binary at ~/.local/bin/ccft is everything. No install dir, no rsync between source and install, no plist hardcoded to a vendored copy.
2. Streaming is preserved. A custom Body wrapper taps the upstream SSE stream chunk-by-chunk, parsing usage tokens as bytes pass through. Tokens reach the client at the same cadence as direct (~300-450 ms apart).
3. Tiny resident footprint. ~6 MB on disk, ~4 MB resident at idle.

Install

Prereq: rustc ≥ 1.95 (brew install rust).

make install         # build + ccft install
ccft trust           # print the env vars Claude needs

ccft install does five things, idempotently:

1. Generates a self-signed CA at ~/.cc-flytrap/{ca.pem,ca.key} (if missing).
2. Writes a default config at ~/.config/ccft/ccft.json (if missing).
3. Copies the running binary to ~/.local/bin/ccft.
4. Writes ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ccft.plist pointing at the installed binary, with RunAtLoad and KeepAlive.
5. launchctl bootstraps the plist into the user domain.

After install, the proxy is running on 127.0.0.1:7178. To route Claude through it:

ccft trust --apply   # writes HTTPS_PROXY + NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS into ~/.claude.json (with backup)
# — or, manually —
export HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7178
export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=$HOME/.cc-flytrap/ca.pem

--apply always backs up ~/.claude.json to .claude.json.bak first. ccft trust --revoke removes the keys.

Uninstall

ccft uninstall

Bootout, removes the plist, removes the installed binary. Keeps the CA cert, config, and ledger so a re-install picks up where you left off. To purge:

rm -rf ~/.cc-flytrap ~/.config/ccft ~/.local/share/ccft

Lifecycle

ccft status                  # is it loaded? bound? on which port?
ccft start                   # kick launchd
ccft stop                    # bootout (will respawn on next login)
ccft restart                 # bootout + bootstrap
ccft logs                    # tail launchd output
ccft logs -n 200             # last 200 lines

Dev mode

make dev                     # builds, then runs `ccft dev` in foreground
# — or, hot iterate —
cargo run --release -- dev

ccft dev runs the same proxy in foreground with isolated state:

	Production (ccft run)	Dev (ccft dev)
Port	7178	7179
Config	~/.config/ccft/ccft.json	~/.config/ccft/dev.json
Ledger	~/.local/share/ccft/ledger.jsonl	~/.local/share/ccft/dev/ledger.jsonl
Process	launchd-managed	foreground, dies with the shell
CA	shared ~/.cc-flytrap/ca.pem	shared ~/.cc-flytrap/ca.pem

To use dev: HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7179 NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=$HOME/.cc-flytrap/ca.pem claude -p "...". The CA is shared so trust setup carries over.

Config

~/.config/ccft/ccft.json (or $CCFT_CONFIG):

{
  "host":            "127.0.0.1",
  "port":            7178,
  "system_override": "",
  "pain":            false,
  "ledger":          true
}

Key	Default	Meaning
host	"127.0.0.1"	Bind address
port	7178	Bind port
system_override	""	Extra system block injected into every /v1/messages. Empty = skip injection.
pain	false	false trims Claude Code's three large bloat blocks; true leaves them alone.
ledger	true	Write per-response JSONL records to ~/.local/share/ccft/ledger.jsonl.

Config reload requires restart (ccft restart).

Ledger schema

Each line in ~/.local/share/ccft/ledger.jsonl:

{
  "ts": 1778104532.67977, "te": 1778104534.415335,
  "dt": "2026-05-06 21:55:32",
  "human": "adil", "agent": "host-70bbe330",
  "sid": "170bf0f2-ae59-46b6-af51-22c1b107c08e",
  "cip": "127.0.0.1:54188", "pip": "124.29.237.112", "sip": null,
  "ep": "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages?beta=true",
  "reg": null, "model": "claude-haiku-4-5-20251001",
  "in": 520, "out": 84, "tot": 604, "lat": 758,
  "cr": 0, "cc": 0, "c_us": 115
}

The TUI brainrot panel reads this file as-is.

How it works

claude  ──HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7178──>  ccft  ──HTTPS h1.1──>  api.anthropic.com
                                                  │
                                                  ├─ on_request:  decode → mutate `system` array → re-encode → forward
                                                  │
                                                  └─ on_response: wrap Body with SseTap →
                                                                  every chunk forwarded to client + parsed for SSE usage events →
                                                                  on stream end, append ledger.jsonl line

Built on hudsucker, a hyper-1.x + tokio + rustls MITM proxy library. h1.1 is forced (Anthropic accepts it cleanly via ALPN, which sidesteps the open h2 issues across the Go/Rust MITM ecosystem).

TUI

ccft with no subcommand at a tty opens the full-screen interactive dashboard. Brainrot is the frame; everything else is a knob or an overlay.

Keyboard:

Key	What
← / → (or [ / ])	step through range presets
t y h w W a	jump to today / yday / 24h / 7d / this-week / all
r	force refresh
d s p l	overlay: split / sessions / perf / live
?	help overlay
Esc	close overlay
q / Ctrl-C	quit

The header status block (right side) is always-on: port-bound dot, pid, uptime, clock. There's no separate "status pane" — the proxy health is permanently in the chrome.

The range and zoom dials at the bottom are the primary interactivity. Time is the X axis; everything else (overlays, filters, models pane) keeps the same range so drilling preserves context.

File layout

Path	Owner	What
~/.local/bin/ccft	ccft install	The binary itself
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.ccft.plist	ccft install	launchd unit
~/.cc-flytrap/ca.pem, ca.key	ccft install (or first run)	Self-signed CA
~/.config/ccft/ccft.json	user / ccft install (default)	Production config
~/.config/ccft/dev.json	user (optional)	Dev config
~/.local/share/ccft/ledger.jsonl	runtime	Production ledger
~/.local/share/ccft/state.jsonl	runtime	ledger_on/ledger_off events
~/.local/share/ccft/dev/ledger.jsonl	ccft dev	Dev ledger
~/.local/share/ccft/logs/launchd.log	launchd	stdout+stderr from the service

Subcommand reference

Command	What
ccft run	Run proxy in foreground using production config (what launchd invokes)
ccft dev	Run proxy in foreground using dev config (port 7179, isolated ledger)
ccft install	Copy binary, generate CA, write plist, bootstrap launchd
ccft uninstall	Bootout, remove plist + binary, keep CA/config/ledger
ccft status	Print install + load + bind state
ccft start	launchctl kickstart
ccft stop	launchctl bootout
ccft restart	bootout + bootstrap
ccft trust	Print env vars for Claude
ccft trust --apply	Write env into ~/.claude.json (with backup)
ccft trust --revoke	Remove env from ~/.claude.json
ccft trust --ca	Dump CA PEM to stdout
ccft logs [-n 50]	Tail launchd.log
ccft tui (or ccft alone at a tty)	Full-screen interactive dashboard with time-dimension dials

Sources / dependencies

• hudsucker — MIT/Apache, hyper-based MITM proxy library
• rcgen — CA + cert generation
• rustls + aws-lc-rs — TLS server side
• serde_json — JSON parse + emit for request mutation, ledger, config
• clap — CLI args + subcommands
• dashmap — concurrent map for the request→response flow stash
• ratatui — TUI rendering
• tokio, hyper — async runtime + HTTP plumbing

Earlier pilot (lua/)

lua/ contains a pre-Rust pilot that ran cc-flytrap as a Lua plugin inside the proxelar MITM proxy. It worked for request mutation but proxelar buffers response bodies whenever a script is loaded — the streaming UX collapses to one chunk at end-of-stream. This Rust implementation was the response to that limit.