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.
RTK Plugin for OpenClaw
Transparently rewrites shell commands executed via OpenClaw's exec tool to their RTK equivalents, cutting up to 90% of the bash output that reaches the LLM context.
This is the OpenClaw equivalent of the Claude Code hooks in hooks/rtk-rewrite.sh.
How it works
The plugin registers a before_tool_call hook that intercepts exec tool calls. When the agent runs a command like git status, the plugin delegates to rtk rewrite which returns the optimized command (e.g. rtk git status). The compressed output enters the agent's context window, saving tokens.
All rewrite logic lives in RTK itself (rtk rewrite). This plugin is a thin delegate -- when new filters are added to RTK, the plugin picks them up automatically with zero changes.
Installation
Prerequisites
RTK must be installed and available in $PATH:
brew install rtk
# or
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rtk-ai/rtk/refs/heads/master/install.sh | sh
Install the plugin
# Copy the plugin to OpenClaw's extensions directory
mkdir -p ~/.openclaw/extensions/rtk-rewrite
cp openclaw/index.ts openclaw/openclaw.plugin.json ~/.openclaw/extensions/rtk-rewrite/
# Restart the gateway
openclaw gateway restart
Or install via OpenClaw CLI
openclaw plugins install ./openclaw
Configuration
In openclaw.json:
{
plugins: {
entries: {
"rtk-rewrite": {
enabled: true,
config: {
enabled: true, // Toggle rewriting on/off
verbose: false // Log rewrites to console
}
}
}
}
}
What gets rewritten
Everything that rtk rewrite supports (30+ commands). See the full command list.
What's NOT rewritten
Handled by rtk rewrite guards:
- Commands already using
rtk - Piped commands (
|,&&,;) - Heredocs (
<<) - Commands without an RTK filter
Measured savings
| Command | Output reduction |
|---|---|
git log --stat |
87% |
ls -la |
78% |
git status |
66% |
grep (single file) |
52% |
find -name |
48% |
License
Apache 2.0 -- same as RTK.