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RTK Compression

Thin fail-open adapter that routes Agent Zero terminal commands through the RTK CLI for output compression. Install automatically downloads the pinned RTK binary; uninstall removes plugin files only and leaves the RTK binary user-owned.

Author rotarurazvan07 0 stars Version 1.0.0 Updated
ToolsCliAgentsDevelopment
GitHub Repository Discussion How to install

README

RTK Compression for Agent Zero

Cut the token cost of terminal output in Agent Zero, without changing how you work.

This plugin routes every terminal command through RTK, a CLI that rewrites commands so their output is compressed before it reaches the agent's context. Less noise, fewer tokens, same result.

Fail-open by design: if RTK is missing, slow, or errors out, your original command runs unchanged. Worst case, you get uncompressed output.

Install

Option 1: Plugin Hub Search for rtk in Agent Zero's Plugin Hub and install.

Option 2: Git clone

git clone https://github.com/rotarurazvan07/rtk-a0.git usr/plugins/rtk_a0

How it works

  1. On install or update, scripts/setup.sh downloads the RTK release pinned in rtk_pin.txt (currently v1.0.1, static musl build), verifies its SHA-256 against the release checksums.txt, and installs it to /usr/local/bin/rtk.
  2. Before each terminal command runs, the plugin calls rtk rewrite <command>.
  3. If RTK returns a rewrite, that runs instead. Otherwise the original command runs.

Rewritten commands still pass through Agent Zero's normal permission layer. The plugin never bypasses approvals.

Check that it's working

Ask the agent to run:

rtk gain

This shows RTK's own savings ledger: total tokens saved and a per-command breakdown.

Savings depend on the command. Output-heavy commands compress well; tiny outputs can even grow slightly.

Example

Command Before After Reduction
git status 476 B 125 B 73.7%

Usage

No configuration needed. A few useful things to know:

  • Commands you prefix with rtk yourself (rtk gain, rtk --version) pass through untouched.
  • Want raw output? Use rtk bypass <command>:
  rtk bypass ls -la

Fail-open guarantee

Your command always runs. Each of these cases falls back to the original command:

  • RTK not found on PATH (one warning per session)
  • Rewrite takes longer than 2 seconds
  • RTK exits with an error (except rc 3, see below)
  • Empty or identical rewrite output
  • Any internal plugin error

Troubleshooting

"rtk unavailable — running uncompressed" warning The RTK binary isn't on PATH. Re-run setup from the plugin directory (safe to repeat):

RTK_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin bash scripts/setup.sh
rtk --version

Then restart the session and run rtk gain.

Setup couldn't download RTK Offline container, network block, or checksum mismatch. Setup logs one warning and exits cleanly; the plugin works uncompressed until the binary is available.

RTK exits with rc 3 This is RTK's allow-rules notice. The rewrite is still applied, and Agent Zero's permission layer handles approval as usual.

Uninstall

Removing the plugin deletes the plugin files only. The RTK binary at /usr/local/bin/rtk is left in place; delete it yourself if you want it gone.

License

This plugin is Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE).

RTK is a separate BUSL-1.1 project. This plugin downloads the RTK binary at setup time and calls it as rtk rewrite <command>. It does not vendor, embed, or reimplement any RTK code.

Code health

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