Wrap high-verbosity shell commands with RTK to reduce token consumption. Use when running git log, git diff, cargo test, pytest, or other verbose CLI output that wastes context window tokens.
Purpose: Automatically suggest RTK wrappers for high-verbosity commands to reduce token consumption.
git log → rtk git log (92.3% reduction)git status → rtk git status (76.0% reduction)find → rtk find (76.3% reduction)git diff → rtk git diff (55.9% reduction)cat <large-file> → rtk read <file> (62.5% reduction)pnpm list → rtk pnpm list (82% reduction)pnpm test / vitest run → rtk vitest run (90% reduction)cargo test → rtk cargo test (90% reduction)cargo build → rtk cargo build (80% reduction)cargo clippy → rtk cargo clippy (80% reduction)pytest → rtk python pytest (90% reduction)go test → rtk go test (90% reduction)gh pr view → rtk gh pr view (87% reduction)gh pr checks → rtk gh pr checks (79% reduction)ls → rtk ls (condensed output)grep → rtk grep (filtered output)User: "Show me the git history"
Skill: Detects git log → Suggests rtk git log → Explains 92.3% token savings
User: "Find all markdown files"
Skill: Detects find → Suggests rtk find "*.md" . → Explains 76.3% savings
Before first use, verify RTK is installed:
rtk --version # Should output: rtk 0.16.0+
If not installed:
# Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew install rtk-ai/tap/rtk
# Cargo (all platforms)
cargo install rtk
# When user requests high-verbosity command:
1. Acknowledge request
2. Suggest RTK optimization:
"I'll use `rtk git log` to reduce token usage by ~92%"
3. Execute RTK command
4. Track savings (optional):
"Saved ~13K tokens (baseline: 14K, RTK: 1K)"
Optional: Track cumulative savings across session:
# At session end
rtk gain # Shows total token savings for session (SQLite-backed)
Enable via CLAUDE.md:
## Token Optimization
Use RTK (Rust Token Killer) for high-verbosity commands:
- git operations (log, status, diff)
- package managers (pnpm, npm)
- build tools (cargo, go)
- test frameworks (vitest, pytest)
- file finding and reading
Based on real-world testing:
git log: 13,994 chars → 1,076 chars (92.3% reduction)git status: 100 chars → 24 chars (76.0% reduction)find: 780 chars → 185 chars (76.3% reduction)git diff: 15,815 chars → 6,982 chars (55.9% reduction)read file: 163,587 chars → 61,339 chars (62.5% reduction)Average: 72.6% token reduction
Use RTK for: git workflows, file operations, test frameworks, build tools, package managers Skip RTK for: small outputs, quick exploration, interactive commands
docs/resource-evaluations/rtk-evaluation.mdexamples/claude-md/rtk-optimized.md