| name | quiet-output |
| description | Before running a verbose dev command whose output would flood the session — a deploy (scripts/deploy), an image build, an ingest run, a migration, a git/gh/psql/grep/find with a large result — run it through `rtk` so only the signal reaches context instead of a 1000-line firehose. Repo-dev tool for developing precis-mcp; NOT a precis product skill. |
quiet-output — keep noisy command logs out of context with rtk
Verbose command output is the biggest avoidable context sink in this repo's
dev loop. rtk (a token-killer CLI proxy; brew install rtk) filters a
command's output to just the signal — failures, compacted tables, grouped
errors — and tees the full log to disk. We use it manually, no auto-hook:
the explicit rtk in the command line is itself the signal that a filter is in
play, so filtered output is never mistaken for raw.
When to reach for it
Prefix the noisy command:
rtk err -- scripts/deploy # arbitrary command, errors/warnings only
rtk summary -- <cmd> # arbitrary command, heuristic summary
rtk git status | rtk git diff # compact git
rtk psql -- <psql args> # borderless, compressed tables
rtk grep / rtk rg / rtk find # compact search output
rtk is a safe passthrough — a subcommand it doesn't specially handle runs
unchanged. Project-specific filters live in .rtk/filters.toml (committed).
When NOT to
- Tests —
scripts/test already terse-ifies pytest; don't double-wrap.
- Interactive commands (a shell, an interactive
psql, anything needing a
TTY) — rtk captures output, so there's nothing to type into.
- When you genuinely need the raw stream — run it without
rtk.
The output is a DIGEST, not raw
Treat rtk output as a filtered digest. If a detail you need was compressed
away, re-run the command raw (or read the tee'd full log rtk prints) —
never assume the digest is the whole story.
Exit codes: rtk err -- <cmd> propagates the child's exit code; rtk summary -- <cmd> does NOT (it returns 0 even on failure). So when the exit
status matters — chaining on &&, gating on success — use rtk err, not rtk summary.
