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.
Yeah 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.
Does context mode only work with MCPs? Or does it work with bash/git/npm commands as well?
I'm not sure it actually works with MCPs *at all*, trying to get that clarified. How can context-mode get "into the MCP loop"?
See my comment above, context-mode has no way to inject itself into the MCP tool-call - response loop.
Still high-value, outside MCPs.