Adrien Eppling
a1673f7428
RTK was documented as delivering "60-90% token savings", which reads as a cost reduction. What RTK actually reduces is bash output bytes. Those are one contributor to input tokens, which are themselves only part of a bill that also counts output tokens, so the reduction dilutes at every step. - add docs/guide/resources/savings-explained.md as the canonical explainer: the savings chain, both estimators, and what RTK does not reduce - rescope the headline claim across README (7 languages), the guide, hook rules, agent definitions and module READMEs - relabel per-command tables as bash output reduction, keeping every figure - document that reported tokens are estimates: rtk gain uses bytes/4 (src/core/tracking.rs), filter tests use split_whitespace().count(). Neither is a real tokenizer, so ratios hold but absolute counts do not Remove figures that had no source: the $3/Mtok constant and its $36 example, the +/-10% tokenization accuracy claim, the 99.5% hook-install figure, the invented session tables in README and INSTALL, and the 30-50% parser range. CHANGELOG is untouched. Shipped release notes stay as a historical record.
3.1 KiB
title, description, sidebar
| title | description | sidebar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quick Start | Get RTK running in 5 minutes and see your first bash output reduction |
|
Quick Start
This guide walks you through your first RTK commands after installation.
Prerequisites
RTK is installed and verified:
rtk --version # rtk x.y.z
rtk gain # shows token savings dashboard
If not, see Installation.
Step 1: Initialize for your AI assistant
# For Claude Code (global — applies to all projects)
rtk init --global
# For a single project only
cd /your/project && rtk init
This installs the hook that automatically rewrites commands. Restart your AI assistant after this step.
Preview without writing: --dry-run
To see exactly what init would change before it touches anything, add --dry-run:
rtk init --global --dry-run
Every would-be file create/update/patch is printed with a [dry-run] would ... prefix, then a [dry-run] Nothing written. footer. Nothing on disk is modified, no settings.json is patched, and the telemetry consent prompt is skipped. Combine with -v to also print the full content RTK would write:
rtk init --global --dry-run -v
--dry-run works for every init flavour (--agent cursor, --gemini, --codex, --copilot, --uninstall, ...). It cannot be combined with --show.
Step 2: Use your tools normally
Once the hook is installed, nothing changes in how you work. Your AI assistant runs commands as usual — the hook intercepts them transparently and rewrites them before execution.
For example, when Claude Code runs cargo test, the hook rewrites it to rtk cargo test before it executes. The LLM receives filtered output with only the failures — not 500 lines of passing tests. You never see or type rtk.
RTK covers all major ecosystems — Git, Cargo/Rust, JavaScript, Python, Go, Ruby, .NET, Docker/Kubernetes, and more. See What RTK Optimizes for the full list.
Step 3: Check your savings
After a few commands, see how much bash output was removed:
rtk gain
Sample output (illustrative, not a promise — your numbers depend on which commands you run):
Total commands : 12
Input tokens : 45,230
Output tokens : 4,890
Saved : 40,340 (89.2%)
The token figures are estimates: RTK counts bytes / 4, not real tokenizer output. The percentage is a reduction in bash output bytes, which is one contributor to input tokens — not a percentage off your bill. See How RTK Savings Work.
Step 4: Unsupported commands
Commands RTK doesn't recognize run through passthrough — output is unchanged, usage is tracked:
rtk proxy make install
Next steps
- What RTK Optimizes — all supported commands and bash output reduction by ecosystem
- How RTK Savings Work — what the percentages actually measure
- Supported agents — Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, and more
- Configuration — customize RTK behavior