rtk-ai / rtk-ai/rtk

Need fix `grep` savings to much lower

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#545 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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area:cli effort-medium enhancement help wanted priority:medium
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
81.1k
Forks
5.1k
Avg merge
4d 21h
Merged PRs (30d)
35

Description

Problem

rtk gain shows much lower savings for rtk grep

On my session, rtk gain reported:

  • Command: rtk grep
  • Count: 94
  • Saved: 3.3M
  • Avg%: 17.9%
Image

But the README advertises roughly -80% savings for grep / rg.

Why this is confusing

This makes it look like rtk grep underperforms badly in real usage, even though the likely issue is broader:

  • Claude Code prefers native tools like Grep, Read, and Glob
  • those native tools bypass the Bash hook
  • RTK therefore does not see or compress much of the actual search workload
  • rtk gain ends up showing a result that users can easily interpret as “grep savings are poor”

Expected behavior

One of these should happen:

  1. rtk gain / rtk discover should show “reachable vs unreachable” search activity
  2. the UI should otherwise make it clearer that this is a tooling-path limitation, not necessarily an rtk grep filter-quality problem

Actual behavior

rtk gain shows low rtk grep savings without enough context to explain why.

Environment

  • RTK version: 0.28.2
  • OS: [26.3 (25D125)
  • Agent/client: OpenCode & Codex (CLI & desktop)
  • Hook installed: yes

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the README's advertised grep savings and the rtk gain/discover entry points; compare what Bash-hook traffic can observe with native Grep, Read, and Glob usage. Define and test a UI change that distinguishes reachable from unreachable search activity, or adds equivalent context, then verify it against the reported 94-command session.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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