Hmem

What does the scouter say about his context level? IT'S OVER 9000!!!

o9k is a meta-framework for AI coding agents. It doesn't invent yet another technique — it combines the best token-efficiency and agent-quality frameworks into one coherent, conflict-free system of Claude Code skills and plugins, wired to a persistent memory MCP.

Every framework below saves tokens or improves output on its own. Combined naively, they fight each other — two plugins hooking SessionStart, two output styles rewriting your prose, two "plans" claiming to be the source of truth. o9k's job is the arbitration layer: each concern has exactly one owner, and the pieces multiply instead of colliding.

---

The Five Pillars

Pillar	Plugin	What it does	Standing on the shoulders of
Doctrine & arbitration	o9k-core	The rules of engagement: who owns which hook, which style, which plan. Loaded once, always on.	Anthropic context-engineering guidance
Output compression	o9k-caveman	Telegraphic output style: ~50–65% fewer output tokens, with automatic fallback to full prose for anything safety-critical.	caveman (MIT)
Context discipline	o9k-scout	Load structure, not files: search before read, targeted line ranges, one canonical repo map per session.	aider repo-map, codesight, ast-grep
Subagent isolation	o9k-dispatch	Cost-gated fan-out: offload searches and decomposable work to isolated subagents that return results, not transcripts.	Anthropic multi-agent research, superpowers' dispatch skills
Memory	o9k-memory	A memory MCP so sessions never start from zero — compact briefing at session start, deep recall on demand, save-before-compact.	hmem (available default), TIM (planned)

Each pillar is an independent plugin. Install all five or cherry-pick — o9k-core is the only one the others assume.

Why combining multiplies

• Less output → less context. Everything the agent says gets fed back into every later turn. caveman-style output doesn't just save this turn's tokens — it shrinks every future turn and delays compaction.
• Less context → better memory. What scout refuses to load blindly never has to be summarized away. What dispatch isolates in a subagent never pollutes the main context. Compaction fires later, loses less.
• Memory → less re-reading. A 300-token briefing from the memory backend replaces the 20k tokens of "let me look around the codebase" that every fresh session burns.
• Together: the agent's effective context — the fraction doing useful work — goes way past what any single technique achieves. It's over 9000.

Zero effort by design

The human should not have to do — or know — anything. After install, a SessionStart hook in o9k-core injects the doctrine automatically every session: the agent compresses its output, loads only what it needs, offloads noisy searches, and saves state before compaction — no commands, no reading, no habits to learn.

What automation can't do (picking a dispatch owner when superpowers is also installed, a one-time hmem init), the agent handles conversationally: /o9k-init is the guided setup — it detects what's already on the machine, asks which companion bundle you want, installs git if you're missing it, and when something you already run collides with a bundle pick it explains why the pick is better and migrates your data before uninstalling anything (your call, either way). On the very first session the agent offers it automatically, and /o9k-guide brings back a one-minute orientation any time. The guide is personalized — it detects your actual setup and mentions only what's missing, offering to fix each item for you. A fully set-up install gets three sentences: everything runs by itself, nothing to do, /o9k-stats shows the effect.

Install

o9k is a Claude Code plugin marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add Bumblebiber/its-over-9k
/plugin install o9k-core@o9k
/plugin install o9k-caveman@o9k
/plugin install o9k-scout@o9k
/plugin install o9k-dispatch@o9k
/plugin install o9k-memory@o9k
/plugin install o9k-recon@o9k

Then run /o9k-init in a session — it detects your setup, walks you through the companion bundle choice, and handles conflicts and migration. Or set up the memory backend by hand. hmem is the available default today:

npm install -g hmem-mcp && hmem init

TIM is a planned backend — not yet published. Once it ships, o9k-memory will auto-detect it (tim resolve-project) and prefer it; until then the hook falls back to hmem automatically, so nothing to change. Track it at Bumblebiber/tim.

One command for the companions

Don't hand-install the third-party frameworks below. o9k-recon ships a bundle installer that wires up a whole tested stack at once:

/plugin install o9k-recon@o9k

then run the companion-bundles skill (or install/o9k-companions.sh recommended --run). Bundles: minimal, recommended, max — see docs/BUNDLES.md.

Playing with others

o9k deliberately does not re-implement workflow methodology, issue tracking, docs injection, or symbol-level navigation — excellent frameworks exist for those. This matrix covers every o9k-compatible companion and how each pair gets along:

• 🟢 complement each other — worth more together than apart
• ⚪ don't touch — no interaction, safe by construction
• ⚠️ one rule needed — works once you name a single owner (see notes)
• 🔴 block each other — same concern, never both active

	o9k	Ponytail	Context7	ccusage	superpowers	beads	Serena	ast-grep	hmem/TIM	task-master	BMAD·spec-kit
o9k	—	🟢	🟢	⚪	⚠️¹	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢	⚪	⚪
Ponytail	🟢	—	🟢	⚪	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪
Context7	🟢	🟢	—	⚪	🟢	⚪	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪
ccusage	⚪	⚪	⚪	—	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪
superpowers	⚠️¹	🟢	🟢	⚪	—	⚠️²	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚠️²	🔴
beads	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚠️²	—	⚪	⚪	⚠️³	🔴	🔴
Serena	🟢	⚪	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	—	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪
ast-grep	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	—	⚪	⚪	⚪
hmem/TIM	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚠️³	⚪	⚪	—	⚠️³	⚪
task-master	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚠️²	🔴	⚪	⚪	⚠️³	—	🔴
BMAD·spec-kit·SuperClaude	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🔴	🔴	⚪	⚪	⚪	🔴	—⁴

1. o9k × superpowers: keep o9k-dispatch OR superpowers' dispatch skills — one dispatch owner.
2. superpowers × beads/task-master: a plan store beats plan files — the store owns plans, disable superpowers' plan markdown. One plan owner.
3. plan stores × memory: the store owns work items, memory owns lessons/decisions. Never track the same work in both.
4. Grouped entries block each other too — BMAD, spec-kit, and SuperClaude all claim the methodology spine; any two of them collide.

Not in the matrix — replacements, not companions. Some frameworks claim a concern an o9k pillar owns; they never share a setup with o9k, so their pairings are moot. Run them instead of the pillar they displace, or not at all: claude-mem / mem0 (vs the memory backend), Graphify / claude-context / codebase-memory-mcp (vs scout's overview), token-optimizer-mcp (vs caveman+scout).

Full per-framework notes and install mechanisms: docs/COMBINING.md. The same facts exist machine-readable as a compatibility layer (plugins/o9k-core/compat/registry.json): detection, arbitration, and the export-first migration driver (o9k-migrate.mjs) are all registry-driven — /o9k-init uses it to detect rivals, argue the trade-off, and migrate data before anything is uninstalled.

Scouting for new frameworks

The ecosystem moves weekly (9,000+ marketplace entries and climbing). o9k-recon ships framework-scout — a GitHub Scout skill that tells the agent where to hunt (Trending, Topics, the plugin directory, awesome-lists), how to score a candidate (concern → stars → freshness → license → install mechanism), and how to slot it into the matrix above (symbiotic / orthogonal / blocking) before proposing a bundle or matrix update. See plugins/o9k-recon/skills/framework-scout/SKILL.md.

Status

Early but functional. o9k-core and o9k-memory ship real hook automation:

• SessionStart (o9k-core) — injects a ~70-token doctrine directive (never documentation) so all installed pillars apply automatically; flags open arbitrations; offers /o9k-guide once on the first session. Disable via O9K_CORE_HOOK=off.

• SessionStart update check (o9k-core) — reports which pillars/companions are updatable, instantly from a cache; the actual version check runs detached in the background (once per O9K_UPDATE_INTERVAL_HOURS, default 24h), so it never slows session start. O9K_UPDATE_CHECK=notify (default) reports; auto also applies the safe npm-global updates; off disables. Plugins and the marketplace are always notify-only — never clobbered.

• SessionStart (o9k-memory) — detects the memory backend (TIM via tim resolve-project, else hmem) and injects a compact loading directive (never memory content). Stays silent if the backend's own hooks are already installed — one owner per concern. Disable via O9K_MEMORY_HOOK=off.

• PreCompact (o9k-memory) — fires the backend's checkpoint (tim checkpoint / hmem checkpoint) in the background before compaction summarizes the session away. Never blocks or delays compaction.

o9k-core also ships /o9k-guide (personalized setup orientation backed by a read-only detector script), /o9k-update (check pillars & companions for newer versions and apply the safe ones), and /o9k-stats: a zero-dependency analyzer over Claude Code's session transcripts — output share, cache hit profile, avg output per turn — so the savings are measured, not vibes.

Credits & prior art

o9k adapts ideas (and gives full credit) from: caveman by Julius Brussee (MIT), superpowers by Jesse Vincent (MIT), beads by Steve Yegge (MIT), aider's repo-map, LLMLingua, and Anthropic's multi-agent research system write-up. Memory by hmem (with TIM planned). Compatibility research also covers Context7, ccusage, claude-mem, claude-context, and the spec-driven crowd (spec-kit, BMAD, task-master) — see docs/COMBINING.md.

License

MIT