RTK — Input Token Savings

Kodelyth ECC ships end-to-end integration with RTK (Rust Token Killer) — a standalone Rust binary that intercepts shell commands, filters their output, and returns 60-90% fewer tokens to the LLM without losing information.

Written by the RTK team (Apache-2.0). ECC installs, configures, tracks, and reports it. Zero fork, zero code copy.

Why it matters

Every time your AI tool runs git status, ls, cargo test, docker ps, kubectl logs, or any of 100+ common dev commands, it burns thousands of tokens on formatting noise, timestamps, ANSI codes, and duplicated lines. RTK strips that. What reaches the LLM is the meaningful signal — and only the meaningful signal.

Live ledger from this project maintainer's Mac:

total_commands:    1,285
total_input:       7,964,612    ← raw
total_output:      2,858,501    ← after RTK filter
total_saved:       5,107,394    ← 64.1% reduction, all real

How it works

RTK ships a native binary that:

Installs a PreToolUse hook in your AI tool's config
When the tool tries to run git status, the hook rewrites it to rtk git status transparently
RTK executes the real command, filters the output using command-specific rules, and returns the compressed result
The AI sees the compressed output — never even knows the raw output existed

100+ commands supported: git, ls, tree, find, grep, cat, head, tail, cargo, pytest, jest, docker, kubectl, npm, pnpm, yarn, gh, aws, and many more.

Auto-install via ECC

RTK is installed automatically when you install ECC:

npm i -g kodelyth-ecc
kodelythecc --target claude-code

The post-install step:

Detects if rtk is already on your PATH (idempotent — reuses existing install)
If not, installs via Homebrew on macOS, official curl script on Linux / WSL
Runs rtk init -g --auto-patch to write the PreToolUse hook into ~/.claude/settings.json
Prints a summary block confirming the wire-up

Opt out with --no-rtk:

kodelythecc --target claude-code --no-rtk

Native Windows install requires manual .zip download from RTK releases. WSL uses the Linux path.

CLI reference

kodelythecc rtk install                 # install rtk binary (brew or curl)
kodelythecc rtk enable [--target X]     # wire rtk into an IDE (default: claude-code)
kodelythecc rtk enable --all            # wire rtk into every ECC-installed IDE
kodelythecc rtk disable [--target X]    # remove rtk hook from an IDE
kodelythecc rtk status [--json]         # binary version + active integrations
kodelythecc rtk gain [-a] [--format]    # thin passthrough to `rtk gain`
kodelythecc rtk --help                  # focused help

Multi-IDE wiring in one shot

kodelythecc rtk enable --all

Auto-detects every IDE that ECC has been installed for and wires RTK into all of them. Live example:

  ✓ claude-code
  ✓ codex-home
  ✓ gemini-home
 
RTK enabled on 3/3 IDEs. Restart each to activate.

The --all mode checks these config paths:

~/.claude/agents/ → claude-code
~/.cursor/rules/ → cursor
~/.codeium/windsurf/memories/ → windsurf-home
~/.antigravity/ → antigravity
~/.codex/ → codex-home
~/.config/opencode/ → opencode
~/.gemini/ → gemini-home

Per-target flags

RTK's own init command uses different flag names for different IDEs. ECC translates automatically:

ECC target	RTK invocation
`claude-code`	`rtk init -g --auto-patch`
`cursor`	`rtk init -g --agent cursor`
`cursor-project`	`rtk init --agent cursor`
`windsurf-home`	`rtk init -g --agent windsurf`
`windsurf-project`	`rtk init --agent windsurf`
`antigravity`	`rtk init --agent antigravity`
`codex-home`	`rtk init -g --codex`
`opencode`	`rtk init -g --opencode`
`cline`	`rtk init --agent cline`
`gemini-cli`	`rtk init -g --gemini`

Note: RTK rejects --auto-patch on non-Claude-Code flows. ECC only passes it to the default Claude Code hook — matches RTK's own rules.

Dashboard view

kodelythecc dashboard → Token Savings tab → Input savings (RTK) section shows:

Total tokens saved (all-time)
Commands filtered
Raw tokens seen (before compression)
Active integrations across your IDEs
30-day daily savings bar chart

All data comes from RTK's own ledger via rtk gain --all --format json. Zero synthetic numbers, zero fallback.

Combined with Terse mode

RTK saves input tokens. Terse Mode saves output tokens. Together they stack:

Layer	Direction	Typical savings
RTK	Shell output → LLM	60-90%
Terse	LLM → user	40-70%
Combined	Full session	55-65% total

Attribution

License: RTK is Apache-2.0
Maintainer: rtk-ai/rtk
ECC's wrapper code: scripts/rtk/index.js — thin, no fork, MIT
Fallback: If RTK's upstream ever disappears, ECC will fork + vendor the binary distribution. Apache-2.0 permits it.

RTK Integration — 60-90% Input Token Savings for Claude Code and Every AI IDE