Adaptive compression · never worse than zip

The right codec for every column — chosen automatically.

AT-1 auto-selects the best transform and entropy back-end per numeric column and guarantees the result is never larger than a strong general compressor — so turning it on is pure upside. Validated across 27 real data tiers.

Auto-tuned per column

AT-1 tries a small battery of decorrelating transforms (delta, double-delta, linear-predictive, spectral, byte-plane) against several entropy back-ends — including brotli — and keeps the smallest. You don't pick a codec; the data does.

Never worse than zip — guaranteed

Every container is compared against a strong general-compressor baseline, and the smaller one always wins. There is no input — not even adversarial or already-compressed data — that makes AT-1 expand your file. It is enforced in CI on every release.

Signal-aware predictors

Sensor, vibration, biosignal and audio columns get a linear-predictive (AR/LPC) or spectral model that captures structure a general compressor can't see — the source of the double-digit wins on machine and instrument data.

Same verified container

Output carries AT-1's SHA-256 integrity trailer and stays queryable and addressable. You get the extra ratio without giving up tamper-evidence or in-place query.

Measured wins on real data

Extra reduction on top of a strong general compressor (xz/brotli), lossless and bit-exact. From the AT-1 compression lab — 27 tiers, 12,555 pipelines.

Data typeExtra reductionAuto-selected method
Sorted IDs / DB keys−44%delta + brotli
Tabular numeric−38%delta + brotli
Financial tick−32%delta + brotli
Hydraulic sensor−31%delta + AR/LPC
Genomic positions−27%delta + brotli
Multi-channel sensor−26%delta + brotli
LiDAR point cloud−22%AR/LPC + brotli
Smart-meter (AMI)−18%delta + brotli
EEG / biosignal−13%delta + AR/LPC
Model weights (int16)−14%byte-plane + brotli

Tiers where structure isn’t present (random bytes, hashes, already-compressed data) fall back to the baseline — never worse, never a surprise.

Turn it on in one command

# auto-select transform + entropy back-end, never worse than baseline
at1 optimize compress  readings.npy  readings.at1o
at1 optimize verify    readings.at1o      # confirm the SHA-256 integrity trailer

Need a guaranteed-error lossy mode for scientific and sensor archives? See Bounded mode.