Claude Code hook misses rtk-eligible commands inside compound invocations (pipes, && chains)

Summary

The Claude Code hook (rtk hook claude) rewrites simple Bash commands to their rtk equivalents, but commands embedded in compound invocations — && chains, pipelines, redirects — pass through unrewritten even when rtk already handles them. Over a real 30-day window this accounted for ~43.8K tokens of missed savings in one project.

Environment

• rtk 0.42.4 (Homebrew, macOS / Darwin 25.5.0)
• Claude Code with rtk hook claude wired as a PreToolUse Bash hook

Evidence (rtk discover output)

Scanned: 10 sessions (last 30 days), 941 Bash commands
Already using RTK: 489 commands (52.0%)

MISSED SAVINGS -- Commands RTK already handles
Command                  Count    RTK Equivalent     Est. Savings
grep -n                     90    rtk grep           ~19.6K tokens
head -60                    32    rtk read           ~6.9K tokens
gh issue                    27    rtk gh             ~6.3K tokens
git status                  40    rtk git            ~4.5K tokens
ls bin/                     30    rtk ls             ~3.6K tokens
wc -c                       15    rtk wc             ~1.0K tokens
curl -s                      4    rtk curl           ~876 tokens
diff -q                      3    rtk diff           ~536 tokens
find ...                     7    rtk find           ~357 tokens
Total: 248 commands -> ~43.8K tokens saveable

Spot-checking the session transcripts, nearly all of these misses were inside compound commands, e.g.:

grep -n "pattern" file.py | head -20
git status --short && git log --oneline -5
some-tool --json 2>&1 | head -60

The standalone forms of the same commands are rewritten correctly.

Why this is plausibly intentional (and a suggestion anyway)

Rewriting inside a pipeline can change semantics (e.g. a downstream parser expecting exact upstream output), so skipping compound commands is a defensible safety default. Two ideas that might capture most of the value without that risk:

1. Rewrite only the safe positions: the first command of an &&/; chain, or the head of a pipeline when the rtk equivalent is output-compatible for piping.
2. Opt-in flag (e.g. rtk hook claude --compound) for users willing to accept the trade-off, keeping the conservative default.

Even handling just the leading command of && chains would have covered a large share of the 248 misses above.

Happy to provide fuller rtk discover --history data if useful. Thanks for the tool — the 52% that is covered is already saving real money.

Start at the rtk hook claude entry point and reproduce the standalone and compound Bash examples from the issue. Trace how && chains, pipelines, redirects, and the conservative default are handled, then define and verify the selected safe or opt-in behavior against the missed-command cases described.