context-mode vs rtk
Local plugin for 10 coding agents that runs tool calls in a sandbox, indexes full output in SQLite FTS5 and returns only what the agent asks for — ~99% fewer bytes in context, zero telemetry. — versus — Rust CLI proxy compressing dev-command output 60-90% before your agent reads it — git, tests, linters, docker, 100+ commands; hooks auto-rewrite bash calls. Single binary, <10ms overhead.
Both cut dev-command output before the agent reads it; rtk filters per command, context-mode sandboxes and searches the full result.
| context-mode | rtk | |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | 34k | 86k |
| Forks | 2.3k | 5.5k |
| Language | JavaScript | Rust |
| License | NOASSERTION | Apache-2.0 |
| Last activity | yesterday | yesterday |
| Topics | coding, local | coding, local |
| Curated connections | 6 | 9 |
context-mode — the curator's take
Use it when long sessions die from tool-output bloat (logs, test runs, fetched pages) and you want the agent to search output rather than read it, across Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more. Skip it if you need an OSI license (it's ELv2, source-available) or your agent rarely produces large outputs; the hosted Gateway is a separate paid product, not needed for the plugin.
rtk — the curator's take
The rare token-saver whose README explains why its headline number is NOT your bill cut — bash output is one slice of input tokens, and the savings dilute; that honesty earns trust. Two things to know before judging your gains: the hook only intercepts Bash tool calls (Claude Code's built-in Read/Grep/Glob bypass it entirely), and `rtk gain` estimates tokens at bytes/4, not with a tokenizer. Compression is lossy by design — when a debugging session goes weird, the clue may be in the output rtk collapsed; `rtk proxy` is the escape hatch, use it. Beware the crates.io name collision with Rust Type Kit.