What RTK Optimizes

What RTK Optimizes

Once RTK is installed with a hook, these commands are automatically intercepted and filtered. You run them normally — the hook rewrites them transparently before execution.

Note

RTK reduces bash output bytes — the only thing it controls. Those bytes are one contributor to input tokens, and input tokens are only part of a bill that also counts output tokens. See How RTK Savings Work.

Git

Command	What changes
git status	Compact stat format, grouped by state
git log	Hash + author + subject only
git diff	Context reduced, headers stripped
git show	Same as diff
git stash list	Compact one-line per entry

GitHub CLI

Command	What changes
gh pr view	Removes ASCII art and verbose metadata
gh pr checks	Status + name only, failures highlighted
gh run list	Compact workflow run summary
gh issue view	Body only, no decoration

Graphite (Stacked PRs)

Command	What changes
gt log	Stack summary only
gt status	Current branch context

Cargo / Rust

Command	What changes
cargo test	Failures only, passed tests suppressed
cargo nextest	Same as test
cargo build	Errors and warnings only
cargo check	Errors and warnings only
cargo clippy	Lint warnings grouped by file

JavaScript / TypeScript

Command	What changes
jest	Failures only
vitest	Failures only
tsc	Type errors grouped by file
eslint	Violations grouped by rule
pnpm list	Compact dependency tree
pnpm outdated	Package + current + latest only
next build	Route summary + errors only
prisma migrate	Migration status only
playwright test	Failures + trace links only

Python

Command	What changes
pytest	Failures only
ruff check	Violations grouped by file
mypy	Type errors grouped by file
pip install	Installed packages only, progress stripped

Go

Command	What changes
go test	Failures only
golangci-lint run	Violations grouped by file
go build	Errors only

Ruby

Command	What changes
rspec	Failures only
rubocop	Offenses grouped by file
rake	Task output, build errors highlighted

.NET

Command	What changes
dotnet build	Errors and warnings only
dotnet test	Failures only
dotnet format	Changed files only

Docker / Kubernetes

Command	What changes
docker ps	Essential columns (name, image, status, port)
docker images	Name + tag + size only
docker logs	Deduplicated, last N lines
docker compose up	Service status, errors highlighted
kubectl get pods	Name + status + restarts only
kubectl logs	Deduplicated entries

Files and Search

Command	What changes
ls	Tree format with file counts
find	Tree format
grep	Truncated lines, grouped by file
ast-grep	Grouped by file, capped overflow; --json passes through
diff	Context reduced
wc	Compact counts
cat / head / tail <file>	Smart file reading via rtk read
rtk smart <file>	2-line heuristic code summary (signatures only)

Cloud and Data

Command	What changes
aws	JSON condensed, relevant fields only
psql	Query results without decoration
curl	Response body only, headers stripped

Global flags

These flags apply to all RTK commands and must come before the subcommand:

Flag	Description
-v / --verbose	Show filtering details on stderr (-v, -vv, -vvv for increasing detail)

# Debug: see what RTK is doing
rtk -vvv git status

Commands that are not rewritten

If a command isn’t in the list above, RTK runs it through passthrough — the output reaches the LLM unchanged. You can explicitly track unsupported commands:

rtk bypass make install    # runs make install, tracks usage, no filtering

To check which commands were missed opportunities: rtk discover.