Haven't looked at rtk closely but from the description it sounds like it works at the CLI output level, trimming stdout before it reaches the model. Context-mode goes a bit further since it also indexes the full output into a searchable FTS5 database, so the model can query specific parts later instead of just losing them. It's less about trimming and more about replacing a raw dump with a summary plus on-demand retrieval.
replyYeah I like this approach too. I made a tool similar to Beads and after learning about RTK I updated mine to produce less token hungry output. I'm still working on it.
replyDoes context mode only work with MCPs? Or does it work with bash/git/npm commands as well?
replyI’m also trying to see which one makes more sense. Discussion about rtk started today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47189599
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