① Install & forget: up to 90% less command output.
Test runs, diffs, logs and builds are compressed before your agent reads them. 100+ commands, under 25 ms per command, no config, nothing changes in how you work. rtk gain shows what you saved.
② Go further with pipelines, as far as you take it.
Hand heavy reads to a cheaper model, compress more than bash, clean the API traffic without breaking the prompt cache. One agent-agnostic file: start from a built-in, install one someone shared, or write and share your own.
The community built the bash compressor 85k developers starred. Now it is building pipelines: the best one listed today cuts total cost by 20.2% in its author's benchmark.
Agents across the whole company? RTK Pro is the control layer for every AI agent: one gateway for every AI call, costs, secrets and personal data, policies, team catalog, audit. Discover RTK Pro ↓
Install & forget
macOS, and Linux with Homebrew
brew install rtk
Windows, with winget
winget install rtk-ai.rtk
Linux, macOS or WSL, with the install script
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rtk-ai/rtk/refs/heads/master/install.sh | sh
Then plug it into your agent
rtk init -g # Claude Code; every other agent: see "Works in your agent"
Restart your agent. That's it: when it runs git status, RTK runs rtk git status and the agent reads a 3-line summary instead of 40 lines. Nothing to learn, nothing to call, and upgrading RTK never changes this.
Another project named "rtk" exists on crates.io. Check you have this one: rtk gain must show the savings dashboard, not "command not found".
Cargo, pre-built binaries, native Windows, WSL and uninstall: Installation guide · per-agent setup and --dry-run: Quick Start
Measure it: rtk gain
Every command RTK touches is counted on your machine. One command shows what it saved, today and since you installed it.
rtk gain # Summary stats
rtk gain --graph # ASCII graph (last 30 days)
rtk gain --history # Recent command history
rtk gain --daily # Day-by-day breakdown
rtk gain --all --format json # JSON export for dashboards
rtk discover # Find missed savings opportunities
rtk discover --all --since 7 # All projects, last 7 days
rtk session # Show RTK adoption across recent sessions
What the numbers mean. The compressor reduces the command output your agent reads, which is one part of the input tokens, which are one part of the bill: a 90% cut in command output is not a 90% cut in cost. Token counts are estimated as bytes / 4, so the percentages are reliable and the absolute numbers are approximate.
After a week of data, rtk gain ends with one line about RTK Pro, at most once a day and only on a terminal. pro_hint = false under [display] in config.toml turns it off.
Full explanation: How RTK Savings Work · attribution, the live dashboard and export formats: Token Savings Analytics
Out of the box: the bash compressor
The part 85k developers starred. Built by 200+ contributors, written against real command output, and every filter has to cut at least 20% to ship.
| Operation | What the agent reads |
|---|
cargo test / npm test / pytest / go test | Failures only, with their assertion; passing tests collapsed to a count |
git status / git diff / git log | Compact status, reduced diff context, one line per commit |
git add/commit/push | A confirmation line instead of progress output |
ls / tree / grep / rg | Trees with counts, matches grouped by file, long lines cut |
ruff check / eslint / cargo clippy | Grouped by rule and file |
docker ps / kubectl | Essential fields only |
100+ commands across Git, GitHub CLI, Cargo/Rust, JavaScript (npm, pnpm, vitest, jest, tsc, Next.js, Angular, Playwright, Prisma), Python (ruff, pytest, mypy, pip), Go (go test, golangci-lint), Ruby, .NET, JVM (Gradle, Maven), PHP, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Terraform, and the file/search builtins. Every command and its filter: What RTK Optimizes
Three promises
- Never blocks. If a filter fails, you get the raw output, and the command's exit code is passed through unchanged.
- Never worse. RTK never prints more than the command did.
- Nothing hidden. Output that is cut says where the full version is, and
rtk bypass runs any command unfiltered, still tracked in rtk gain:
rtk bypass git log --oneline -20 # full git log, no truncation
rtk bypass npm install express # raw npm output
The hook rewrites shell commands. Built-in tools such as Read, Grep and Glob pass through untouched out of the box; in Claude Code, a pipeline compresses them too (see Pipelines below).
Does RTK break the prompt cache? No: output is filtered once, before it enters the conversation. Details.
Want to go further? Pipelines.
Out of the box, RTK compresses command output and stops there. A pipeline is how you ask it for more: one small file that tells RTK what to do with what your agent reads and sends. No file means the compressor above and nothing else; a pipeline adds one thing at a time, and you can take it back out.
What people turn on first
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
