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rtk - Rust Token Killer

License: MIT

High-performance CLI proxy to minimize LLM token consumption.

rtk filters and compresses command outputs before they reach your LLM context, saving 60-90% of tokens on common operations.

Token Savings (30-min Claude Code Session)

Typical session without rtk: ~150,000 tokens With rtk: ~45,000 tokens → 70% reduction

Operation Frequency Standard rtk Savings
ls / tree 10× 2,000 400 -80%
cat / read 20× 40,000 12,000 -70%
grep / rg 8× 16,000 3,200 -80%
git status 10× 3,000 600 -80%
git diff 5× 10,000 2,500 -75%
git log 5× 2,500 500 -80%
git add/commit/push 8× 1,600 120 -92%
npm test / cargo test 5× 25,000 2,500 -90%
docker ps 3× 900 180 -80%
Total ~101,000 ~22,000 -78%

Estimates based on medium-sized TypeScript/Rust projects. Actual savings vary by project size.

Installation

Quick Install (Linux/macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pszymkowiak/rtk/master/install.sh | sh

Homebrew (macOS) - Coming Soon

Cargo

cargo install rtk

Debian/Ubuntu

curl -LO https://github.com/pszymkowiak/rtk/releases/latest/download/rtk_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i rtk_amd64.deb

Fedora/RHEL

curl -LO https://github.com/pszymkowiak/rtk/releases/latest/download/rtk.x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i rtk.x86_64.rpm

Manual Download

Download binaries from Releases:

  • macOS: rtk-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz / rtk-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
  • Linux: rtk-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz / rtk-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
  • Windows: rtk-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip

Quick Start

# Initialize rtk for Claude Code
rtk init --global    # Add to ~/CLAUDE.md (all projects)
rtk init             # Add to ./CLAUDE.md (this project)

Global Flags

-u, --ultra-compact    # ASCII icons, inline format (extra token savings)
-v, --verbose          # Increase verbosity (-v, -vv, -vvv)

Commands

Files

rtk ls .                        # Token-optimized 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 diff file1 file2            # Ultra-condensed diff
rtk grep "pattern" .            # Grouped search results

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"

Commands

rtk test cargo test             # Show failures only (-90% tokens)
rtk err npm run build           # Errors/warnings only
rtk summary <long command>      # Heuristic summary
rtk log app.log                 # Deduplicated logs
rtk gh pr list                   # Compact PR listing
rtk gh pr view 42                # PR details + checks summary
rtk gh issue list                # Compact issue listing
rtk gh run list                  # Workflow run status
rtk wget https://example.com    # Download, strip progress bars
rtk config                       # Show config (--create to generate)

Data & Analytics

rtk json config.json            # Structure without values
rtk deps                        # Dependencies summary
rtk env -f AWS                  # Filtered env vars

# Token Savings Analytics (includes execution time metrics)
rtk gain                        # Summary stats with total exec time
rtk gain --graph                # With ASCII graph of last 30 days
rtk gain --history              # With recent command history (10)
rtk gain --quota --tier 20x     # Monthly quota analysis (pro/5x/20x)

# Temporal Breakdowns (includes time metrics per period)
rtk gain --daily                # Day-by-day with avg execution time
rtk gain --weekly               # Week-by-week breakdown
rtk gain --monthly              # Month-by-month breakdown
rtk gain --all                  # All breakdowns combined

# Export Formats (includes total_time_ms and avg_time_ms fields)
rtk gain --all --format json    # JSON export for APIs/dashboards
rtk gain --all --format csv     # CSV export for Excel/analysis

Discover — Find Missed Savings

Scans your Claude Code session history to find commands where rtk would have saved tokens. Use it to:

  • Measure what you're missing — see exactly how many tokens you could save
  • Identify habits — find which commands you keep running without rtk
  • Spot new opportunities — see unhandled commands that could become rtk features
rtk discover                    # Current project, last 30 days
rtk discover --all              # All Claude Code projects
rtk discover --all --since 7    # Last 7 days across all projects
rtk discover -p aristote        # Filter by project name (substring)
rtk discover --format json      # Machine-readable output

Example output:

RTK Discover -- Savings Opportunities
====================================================
Scanned: 142 sessions (last 30 days), 1786 Bash commands
Already using RTK: 108 commands (6%)

MISSED SAVINGS -- Commands RTK already handles
----------------------------------------------------
Command              Count    RTK Equivalent        Est. Savings
git log                434    rtk git               ~55.9K tokens
cargo test             203    rtk cargo             ~49.9K tokens
ls -la                 107    rtk ls                ~11.8K tokens
gh pr                   80    rtk gh                ~10.4K tokens
----------------------------------------------------
Total: 986 commands -> ~143.9K tokens saveable

TOP UNHANDLED COMMANDS -- open an issue?
----------------------------------------------------
Command              Count    Example
git checkout            84    git checkout feature/my-branch
cargo run               32    cargo run -- gain --help
----------------------------------------------------
-> github.com/FlorianBruniaux/rtk/issues

Containers

rtk docker ps                   # Compact container list
rtk docker images               # Compact image list
rtk docker logs <container>     # Deduplicated logs
rtk kubectl pods                # Compact pod list
rtk kubectl logs <pod>          # Deduplicated logs
rtk kubectl services             # Compact service list

JavaScript / TypeScript Stack

rtk lint                         # ESLint grouped by rule/file
rtk lint biome                   # Supports other linters too
rtk tsc                          # TypeScript errors grouped by file
rtk next build                   # Next.js build compact output
rtk prettier --check .           # Files needing formatting
rtk vitest run                   # Test failures only
rtk playwright test              # E2E results (failures only)
rtk prisma generate              # Schema generation (no ASCII art)
rtk prisma migrate dev --name x  # Migration summary
rtk prisma db-push               # Schema push summary

Examples

Standard vs rtk

Directory listing:

# ls -la (45 lines, ~800 tokens)
drwxr-xr-x  15 user  staff    480 Jan 23 10:00 .
drwxr-xr-x   5 user  staff    160 Jan 23 09:00 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 user  staff   1234 Jan 23 10:00 Cargo.toml
...

# rtk ls (12 lines, ~150 tokens)
📁 my-project/
├── src/ (8 files)
│   ├── main.rs
│   └── lib.rs
├── Cargo.toml
└── README.md

Git operations:

# git push (15 lines, ~200 tokens)
Enumerating objects: 5, done.
Counting objects: 100% (5/5), done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
...

# rtk git push (1 line, ~10 tokens)
ok ✓ main

Test output:

# cargo test (200+ lines on failure)
running 15 tests
test utils::test_parse ... ok
test utils::test_format ... ok
...

# rtk test cargo test (only failures, ~20 lines)
FAILED: 2/15 tests
  ✗ test_edge_case: assertion failed at src/lib.rs:42
  ✗ test_overflow: panic at src/utils.rs:18

How It Works

  1. Smart Filtering: Removes noise (comments, whitespace, boilerplate)
  2. Grouping: Aggregates similar items (files by directory, errors by type)
  3. Truncation: Keeps relevant context, cuts redundancy
  4. Deduplication: Collapses repeated log lines with counts

Configuration

rtk reads from CLAUDE.md files to instruct Claude Code to use rtk automatically:

rtk init --show    # Show current configuration
rtk init           # Create local CLAUDE.md
rtk init --global  # Create ~/CLAUDE.md

example of 3 days session:

📊 RTK Token Savings
════════════════════════════════════════

Total commands:    133
Input tokens:      30.5K
Output tokens:     10.7K
Tokens saved:      25.3K (83.0%)

By Command:
────────────────────────────────────────
Command               Count      Saved     Avg%
rtk git status           41      17.4K    82.9%
rtk git push             54       3.4K    91.6%
rtk grep                 15       3.2K    26.5%
rtk ls                   23       1.4K    37.2%

Daily Savings (last 30 days):
────────────────────────────────────────
01-23 │███████████████████                      6.4K
01-24 │██████████████████                       5.9K
01-25 │                                         18
01-26 │████████████████████████████████████████ 13.0K

Auto-Rewrite Hook (Recommended)

The most effective way to use rtk is with the auto-rewrite hook for Claude Code. Instead of relying on CLAUDE.md instructions (which subagents may ignore), this hook transparently intercepts Bash commands and rewrites them to their rtk equivalents before execution.

Result: 100% rtk adoption across all conversations and subagents, zero token overhead.

How It Works

The hook runs as a Claude Code PreToolUse hook. When Claude Code is about to execute a Bash command like git status, the hook rewrites it to rtk git status before the command reaches the shell. Claude Code never sees the rewrite — it's transparent.

Global Install (all projects)

# 1. Copy the hook script
mkdir -p ~/.claude/hooks
cp .claude/hooks/rtk-rewrite.sh ~/.claude/hooks/rtk-rewrite.sh
chmod +x ~/.claude/hooks/rtk-rewrite.sh

# 2. Add to ~/.claude/settings.json under hooks.PreToolUse:

Add this entry to the PreToolUse array in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Bash",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "~/.claude/hooks/rtk-rewrite.sh"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Per-Project Install

The hook is included in this repository at .claude/hooks/rtk-rewrite.sh. To use it in another project, copy the hook and add the same settings.json entry using a relative path or project-level .claude/settings.json.

Commands Rewritten

Raw Command Rewritten To
git status/diff/log/add/commit/push/pull/branch/fetch/stash rtk git ...
gh pr/issue/run rtk gh ...
cargo test/build/clippy rtk cargo ...
cat <file> rtk read <file>
rg/grep <pattern> rtk grep <pattern>
ls rtk ls
vitest/pnpm test rtk vitest run
tsc/pnpm tsc rtk tsc
eslint/pnpm lint rtk lint
prettier rtk prettier
playwright rtk playwright
prisma rtk prisma
docker ps/images/logs rtk docker ...
kubectl get/logs rtk kubectl ...
curl rtk curl
pnpm list/ls/outdated rtk pnpm ...

Commands already using rtk, heredocs (<<), and unrecognized commands pass through unchanged.

Documentation

  • AUDIT_GUIDE.md - Complete guide to token savings analytics, temporal breakdowns, and data export
  • CLAUDE.md - Claude Code integration instructions and project context
  • ARCHITECTURE.md - Technical architecture and development guide

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or PR on GitHub.

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rtk ia code token saver

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