Unbuffered I/O turns every small read or write into its own trip to the operating system and the disk. Log files, CSV exports and socket writes are the usual culprits.
The fix you can use today
Wrap streams in a buffered reader or writer (BufferedWriter, io.BufferedWriter, bufio).
Write in chunks, and stream large files instead of loading them whole.
Flush when you need durability, not after every line.
GreenCode researchers list unbuffered reads and writes among the worst energy wasters in code.
Tools that help
GreenCode Constitution skill (GreenCode researchers): open-source energy principles and a catalogue of 37 energy anti-patterns that an AI coding agent can follow to find and fix waste like this
green-languages (GreenCode researchers): a command-line tool that measures the energy of whole programs or marked sections of code, across languages
How GreenCode helps
GreenCode helps tackle this by rewriting flagged code one piece at a time. It writes any missing tests first, and returns every change for a person to approve. More on this.
