RTK
rtk-ai
CLI proxy that compresses shell command output before your AI coding assistant sees it, cutting tokens 60-90%.
What is RTK?
RTK is a Rust CLI proxy between your terminal and 14 AI coding tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Gemini, Cursor and more). It intercepts output from 100+ dev commands (git, cargo, pytest, docker) and strips stack traces, redundant diffs and verbose logs before they reach the context window, claiming 60-90% token reduction (project's own claim).
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Supports 14 AI coding tools out of the box from one install
- Rust implementation keeps the compression pass near-zero latency
- Works on Windows and WSL as well as macOS and Linux
Cons
- Very high star count for a dev utility - star velocity worth monitoring
- Large open-issue count suggests the heuristics sometimes strip needed context
- Output compression is inherently lossy - the tool decides what is noise
License
Apache-2.0 (OSI-open)
When it is interesting
Long agentic Claude Code or Copilot sessions where git diff, cargo build and pytest output dominate the context budget.
When it is too early
If your sessions are short and context pressure is not a problem.
This repo featured in the 2026-07 edition of the Open-Source AI Radar.
TOON
toon-format
Token-Oriented Object Notation - a compact serialization format that uses ~40% fewer tokens than JSON.
planning-with-files
OthmanAdi
Crash-proof markdown planning for AI coding agents - persists task state across context loss and /clear.