# RTK cuts the bash noise you get billed for

> RTK is a Rust proxy that compresses bash output before a coding agent reads it, so those tokens never hit the bill.

By [Ryan Porter](https://anth.us/ryan) · Published 2026-04-18

Canonical: https://anth.us/articles/rtk/

::image{
  src="images/posts/rtk.png"
  layout="center-small-image"
  alt="rtk-ai/rtk on GitHub: a CLI proxy that compresses command output for coding agents"
}

[RTK](https://github.com/rtk-ai/rtk) sits between a coding agent and the shell so you pay for less input. `git status`, `cargo test`, and `ls` get filtered, grouped, truncated, and deduped before they land in context. Failures stay. Two hundred passing tests become a count. That is how the token bill comes down: stop stuffing the window with command noise.

A hook rewrites Bash calls automatically, which is where most of the waste is. Native Read, Grep, and Glob still skip it, so the savings show up on the commands the agent actually shells out.