rtk-ai/rtk

High-performance CLI proxy that cuts up to 90% of the bash output your agent reads Website • Install • Troubleshooting • Architecture • Discord English • Francais • 中文 • 日本語 • 한국어 • Espanol • Português rtk filters and compresses command outputs before they reach your LLM context. Single Rust binary, 100+ supported commands, <10ms overhead. What RTK Does RTK intercepts shell commands and compresses their output before your agent reads it. Operation What RTK does to the output ls / tree Tree format with file counts instead of one line per entry cat / read Smart file reading: signatures and structure over full bodies grep / rg Truncates long lines, groups matches by file ast-grep Groups structural matches by file, caps overflow git status Compact stat format, grouped by state git diff Reduced context, headers stripped git log Hash, author and subject only git add/commit/push Confirmation line instead of full progress output cargo test / npm test Failures only, passing tests collapsed to a count ruff check Grouped by rule and file sqlfluff lint Grouped by rule and file pytest Failures only, traceback trimmed go test NDJSON parsed, failures only docker ps Essential fields only How Savings Work RTK cuts up to 90% of the bash output your agent reads. That is what RTK measures, and it is not the same as cutting your bill by 90%. Bash output is one contributor to input tokens , alongside your prompt, the system prompt and conversation history. Input tokens are in turn only part of the bill , which also counts output tokens. The reduction dilutes at every step. The token counts RTK reports are estimated as bytes / 4 — RTK ships no tokenizer, so the percentages are reliable but the absolute token numbers are approximate . Full explanation: How RTK Savings Work Installation Homebrew (recommended) brew install rtk winget (Windows) Easiest way to install on Windows — one command, no PATH setup needed: winget install rtk - ai.rtk Quick Install (Linux/macOS) curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rtk-ai/rtk/refs/heads/master/install.sh | sh Installs to ~/.local/bin . Add to PATH if needed: echo ' export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" ' >> ~ /.bashrc # or ~/.zshrc Cargo cargo install --git https://github.com/rtk-ai/rtk Pre-built Binaries Download from releases : macOS: rtk-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz / rtk-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz Linux: rtk-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz / rtk-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz Windows: rtk-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip Windows users : Extract the zip and place rtk.exe somewhere in your PATH (e.g. C:\Users\<you>\.local\bin ). Run RTK from Command Prompt , PowerShell , or Windows Terminal — do not double-click the .exe (it will flash and close). The full hook system works natively on Windows (and in WSL ). See Windows setup below for details. Verify Installation rtk --version # Should show "rtk 0.28.2" rtk gain # Should show the savings dashboard Name collision warning : Another project named "rtk" (Rust Type Kit) exists on crates.io. If rtk gain fails, you have the wrong package. Use cargo install --git above instead. Quick Start # 1. Install for your AI tool rtk init -g # Claude Code / Copilot (default) rtk init -g --gemini # Gemini CLI rtk init -g --codex # Codex (OpenAI) rtk init -g --agent cursor # Cursor rtk init -g --agent windsurf # Windsurf rtk init --agent cline # Cline / Roo Code rtk init --agent kilocode # Kilo Code rtk init --agent antigravity # Google Antigravity rtk init --agent kimi # Kimi AI rtk init -g --agent pi # Pi rtk init --agent omp # Oh My Pi (OMP) rtk init --agent hermes # Hermes rtk init -g --agent droid # Factory Droid rtk init --agent trae # Trae (project: .trae/hooks.json) rtk init -g --agent trae # Trae global: ~/.trae and existing ~/.trae-cn # 2. Restart your AI tool, then test git status # Automatically rewritten to rtk git status Hook-based agents rewrite Bash commands (e.g., git status -> rtk git status ) before execution. Plugin-based agents, including Hermes, use their plugin API to rewrite commands before execution. The agent receives compact output without needing to call rtk explicitly. Important: the hook only runs on Bash tool calls. Claude Code built-in tools like Read , Grep , and Glob do not pass through the Bash hook, so they are not auto-rewritten. To get RTK's compact output for those workflows, use shell commands ( cat / head / tail , rg / grep , find ) or call rtk read , rtk grep , or rtk find directly. How It Works Without rtk: With rtk: Claude --git status--> shell --> git Claude --git status--> RTK --> git ^ | ^ | | | full raw output | | compact output | filter | +-----------------------------------+ +------- (filtered) ---+----------+ Four strategies applied per command type: Smart Filtering - Removes noise (comments, whitespace, boilerplate) Grouping - Aggregates similar items (files by directory, errors by type) Truncation - Keeps relevant context, cuts redundancy Deduplication - Collapses repeated log lines with counts Does RTK break Claude's prompt cache? No. RTK filters output once per command. The result is stored in history and cached normally on subsequent API calls, so the cache keeps working as expected. Smaller outputs also mean cheaper cache writes and reads. See Troubleshooting for details. Commands Percentages below are reductions in bash output , not reductions in your bill. See How Savings Work . Files rtk ls . # Compact directory tree rtk read file.rs # Smart file reading rtk read file.rs -l aggressive # Signatures only (strips bodies) rtk smart file.rs # 2-line heuristic code summary rtk find " *.rs " . # Compact find results rtk grep " pattern " . # Grouped search results rtk diff file1 file2 # Condensed diff (exit 0: identical, 1: different, 2: read error) Git rtk git status # Compact status rtk git log -n 10 # One-line commits rtk git diff # Condensed diff rtk git add # -> "ok" rtk git commit -m " msg " # -> "ok abc1234" rtk git push # -> "ok main" rtk git pull # -> "ok 3 files +10 -2" GitHub CLI rtk gh pr list # Compact PR listing rtk gh pr view 42 # PR details + checks rtk gh issue list # Compact issue listing rtk gh run list # Workflow run status Test Runners rtk jest # Jest compact (failures only) rtk vitest # Vitest compact (failures only) rtk playwright test # E2E results (failures only) rtk pytest # Python tests (-90%) rtk phpt # PHP .phpt tests (run-tests.php, -99%) rtk go test # Go tests (NDJSON, -90%) rtk cargo test # Cargo tests (-90%) rtk rake test # Ruby minitest (-90%) rtk rspec # RSpec tests (JSON, -60%+) rtk err < cmd > [args...] # Direct argv execution, errors/warnings only rtk test < cmd > [args...] # Direct argv execution, failures only (-90%) rtk err --shell fish ' <script> ' # Explicit shell for shell-specific syntax Build & Lint rtk lint # ESLint grouped by rule/file rtk lint biome # Supports other linters rtk sqlfluff lint # SQL linting (JSON, -75%) rtk sqlfluff lint models/ # Lint a specific directory (pass path after `lint`) rtk tsc # TypeScript errors grouped by file rtk next build # Next.js build compact rtk prettier --check .