Pattern: Token Compression Proxies Emerge as Dedicated Infrastructure Layer Between Agents and CLIs
GitHub / rtk-ai·medium signal
rtk (39K stars, Rust) and snip (Go alternative) represent a new infrastructure category: transparent proxies that sit between AI agents and CLI tools, compressing output before it hits the context window. Both use declarative filters and support all major agents. This mirrors the proxy/middleware pattern from web development — as agent sessions become the primary development interface, dedicated infrastructure for managing what flows into them is becoming its own product category.