LightOn open-sources ColGrep-Agent-2B: local 2B code-search agent cuts Claude Code API tokens ~34% and cache-aware cost ~40%
On 2026-10-12 LightOn AI released ColGrep-Agent-2B (fine-tuned from MiniCPM5-2B, Apache-2.0): a local 2B code-localization agent that searches with ColGrep multi-vector retrieval plus a read-only terminal, then returns file paths and line ranges to a frontier coding agent. On 52 code-search questions across 13 unseen repos (624 Claude Code / Sonnet 5.5 sessions), delegating search cut API tokens ~34.3% and cache-aware cost ~40% vs grep, with 80.8% vs 83.3% accuracy (not statistically significant). On SWE-bench Lite localization it posted 19.92 line F1—best among models evaluated in the same ColGrep harness, including several >10× larger. Ships brew/cargo/GGUF installers and hooks for Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode.
Key Takeaways
- Official: HF Blog — ColGrep-Agent (2026-10-12); model lightonai/colgrep-agent-2B; repo lightonai/next-plaid
- Vendor Claude Code + Sonnet 5.5 study (52×3): −34.3% tokens vs grep (95% CI 28–40), ~−40% cache-aware cost (7.3¢→4.4¢/q); accuracy 80.8% vs 83.3%
- Localization: SWE-bench Lite file F1 76.18 / line F1 19.92; Multi-SWE-bench Flash file F1 62.57 / line F1 15.93 (5-seed avg)
- Train: MiniCPM5-2B → SFT (Qwen3.5-27B teacher) → GRPO 500 steps; tools: colgrep / read-only terminal / finish; 10-turn budget
- Install:
brew install lightonai/tap/colgrep && colgrep --install-agent; default GGUF ~2.5GB; hooks for Claude Code / Codex / OpenCode
Linked Models & Agents:
⚡ colgrep-agent-2B⚡ MiniCPM5-2B⚡ Claude Sonnet 5.5🤖 Claude Code🤖 Codex🤖 OpenCode🌐 LightOn🌐 OpenBMB🌐 Anthropic