PromptCompression

A minimal MVP for prompt compression using a fast token-classification model instead of an LLM at runtime.

The first milestone is:

• Run an HTTP API locally from VS Code.
• Compress text with the existing LLMLingua-2 token classifier.
• Control compression with an aggressiveness value from 0.0 to 1.0.
• Return token-count reduction stats.

Quick Start

Open this folder in VS Code:

cd C:\Users\troym\Git\PromptCompression
code .

Create a virtual environment:

python3.14 -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

Start the API:

uvicorn app.main:app --reload --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

The first request may take a while because the model downloads from Hugging Face. The service runs the compression model on CPU by default. Set COMPRESSOR_DEVICE=cuda before starting the API if you have a CUDA-enabled PyTorch install.

Open the API docs:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs

Open the prompt compression UI:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Run the smoke test in another terminal:

python scripts\smoke_test.py

API

GET /health

Checks whether the service is up.

GET /

Opens a browser UI where you can paste a prompt, compress it, and inspect which words were kept or dropped.

POST /compress

Request:

{
  "text": "Prompts are production code. Manage them that way.",
  "aggressiveness": 0.25
}

Response:

{
  "compressed_text": "Prompts production code. Manage way.",
  "original_tokens": 12,
  "compressed_tokens": 8,
  "reduction": 0.3333,
  "aggressiveness": 0.25,
  "target_rate": 0.8625,
  "model": "microsoft/llmlingua-2-bert-base-multilingual-cased-meetingbank",
  "elapsed_ms": 123.4,
  "labeled_tokens": [
    {"text": "Prompts", "kept": true},
    {"text": "are", "kept": false},
    {"text": "production", "kept": true}
  ]
}

POST /v1/compress

Compatibility endpoint for clients that expect a /v1/compress API with input, output, and token-savings fields. This service runs the local COMPRESSOR_MODEL. The model value is accepted for request compatibility.

Request:

{
  "model": "bear-2",
  "input": "Prompts are production code. Manage them that way.",
  "compression_settings": {
    "aggressiveness": 0.25
  }
}

Response:

{
  "output": "Prompts production code. Manage way.",
  "output_tokens": 8,
  "input_tokens": 12,
  "original_input_tokens": 12,
  "tokens_saved": 4,
  "compression_ratio": 1.5,
  "compression_time": 123.4,
  "warnings": []
}

Use http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/compress for the local compatible endpoint. Bearer auth headers are ignored and not required by the local MVP.

How Aggressiveness Works

This MVP maps aggressiveness to LLMLingua-2's retention rate.

aggressiveness = 0.0 -> keep almost everything
aggressiveness = 0.5 -> moderate compression
aggressiveness = 1.0 -> keep at least COMPRESSOR_MIN_RATE of tokens

The output is deterministic for the same model and input. This is intentional: production prompt compression should be predictable and cache-friendly.

VS Code

Included files:

• .vscode/settings.json: Python defaults.
• .vscode/tasks.json: run the API and smoke test.
• .vscode/launch.json: debug the FastAPI service.
• .vscode/extensions.json: recommended extensions.

Docker

The Docker image targets Python 3.14 and exposes the API on container port 8080. The Hugging Face model is downloaded during the Docker build and baked into the image so Cloud Run does not need to download it on first request.

Build:

docker build -t prompt-compression .

Run:

docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 prompt-compression

Then visit:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/docs

Docker Compose

For a repeatable local deployment instance with a persistent Hugging Face model cache:

docker compose up --build -d

Check the container:

docker compose ps
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/health

Run the smoke test against Docker:

$env:API_URL="http://127.0.0.1:8080/compress"
python scripts\smoke_test.py

Stop it:

docker compose down

To remove the downloaded model cache too:

docker compose down -v

If Docker reports Access is denied for //./pipe/docker_engine, run the Docker commands from an elevated terminal or update Docker Desktop permissions for your Windows user.

Cloud Run Hosting Shape

Cloud Run sends traffic to the port in its PORT environment variable. The Dockerfile uses that value and falls back to 8080 for local Docker runs.

Set your project and region:

gcloud config set project YOUR_PROJECT_ID
$env:REGION="us-central1"
$env:SERVICE="prompt-compression"
$env:REPO="prompt-compression"
$env:PROJECT_ID="$(gcloud config get-value project)"
$env:IMAGE="$env:REGION-docker.pkg.dev/$env:PROJECT_ID/$env:REPO/$env:SERVICE`:latest"

Enable the required services:

gcloud services enable run.googleapis.com artifactregistry.googleapis.com cloudbuild.googleapis.com

Create the Artifact Registry repository once:

gcloud artifacts repositories create $env:REPO `
  --repository-format=docker `
  --location=$env:REGION `
  --description="Prompt Compression images"

Build and push the image with Cloud Build:

gcloud builds submit --tag $env:IMAGE .

Deploy to Cloud Run:

gcloud run deploy $env:SERVICE `
  --image $env:IMAGE `
  --region $env:REGION `
  --platform managed `
  --allow-unauthenticated `
  --port 8080 `
  --cpu 2 `
  --memory 4Gi `
  --concurrency 1 `
  --timeout 300s `
  --set-env-vars COMPRESSOR_DEVICE=cpu,COMPRESSOR_MIN_RATE=0.45

Use --no-allow-unauthenticated instead of --allow-unauthenticated if the API should require IAM authentication.

Check the deployed service:

$env:SERVICE_URL="$(gcloud run services describe $env:SERVICE --region $env:REGION --format='value(status.url)')"
curl "$env:SERVICE_URL/health"
$env:API_URL="$env:SERVICE_URL/compress"
python scripts\smoke_test.py

For lower cold-start latency, redeploy with --min-instances 1. That keeps one instance warm and increases idle cost. To use a different Hugging Face model, rebuild with --build-arg COMPRESSOR_MODEL=... so the runtime stays offline and deterministic.

Later optimization steps:

• Export the classifier to ONNX.
• Quantize to INT8.
• Add metrics for latency, reduction percentage, and model version.

Notes

This project uses an existing LLMLingua-2 model for the first milestone. The next milestone is to create your own original/compressed pairs, convert them into KEEP/DROP labels, and fine-tune a smaller classifier on your own domain data.