rtk-ai/rtk

rtk grep doesn't work with piped input

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#1476 opened on Apr 23, 2026

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 (1 comment) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (48,085 stars) (2,914 forks)batch import
bugeffort-smallfilter-qualitygood first issue

Description

Sometimes an LLM wants to pipe a command's output through grep. This doesn't work currently

Steps to reproduce

ps aux | rtk grep bash

Expected result

rtk grep should grep STDIN

Actual result

rtk grep searches through all files in the current working directory for the string

Example

$ ps aux | grep bash
user      215328  0.0  0.0  35152 19720 pts/0    SNs  11:18   0:00 /bin/bash
root      217325  0.0  0.0  24652  9180 pts/1    SN+  11:22   0:00 -bash
user      218879  0.0  0.0  34552 19160 pts/2    SNs  11:23   0:00 /bin/bash
user      224916  0.0  0.0  18980  2364 pts/2    SN+  11:32   0:00 grep --color=auto bash
$ ps aux | rtk grep bash
0 matches for 'bash'

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Basic RustUnderstanding of stdin
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
80
Research direction
The issue is that `rtk grep` currently only searches files in the current directory and ignores stdin. To fix this, examine the grep command implementation in the rtk codebase (likely in a file handling grep logic). The fix should check if stdin is available (e.g., via `atty::isnt` or similar) and if so, read from stdin instead of falling back to file search. Look for existing Rust crates like `atty` or `std::io::stdin` to detect piped input. The comment on the issue may provide additional context.