Expose rtk as a library crate

[Sewer56]

Summary

RTK's filtering engine and command classifier are valuable beyond CLI proxy use.

Several modules (filter.rs, discover/registry.rs, utils.rs) already have clean public APIs that return values; they just can't be consumed externally because there's no [lib] target and all modules are private.
i.e. they use mod not pub mod.

Proposal:

• Add a [lib] target to Cargo.toml
• Create src/lib.rs with curated public re-exports.

This will allow downstream crates to depend on rtk as a library (git dependency).

Motivation

Consuming rtk as a library enables:

• In-process output filtering: no subprocess overhead, call filter.filter(content, lang) directly
• Embedding in other tools: LLM agent frameworks, coding tools, etc. without complexity of downloading rtk.

Current State (Why It Doesn't Work Today)

Check	Result
[lib] section in Cargo.toml	Missing
src/lib.rs	Does not exist
Module visibility	All mod (not pub mod)
crates.io package	Name collision ("Rust Type Kit")

Proposed Change

Modules ready for public exposure (no refactoring needed)

These already return values and avoid println! / std::process::exit():

• filter: FilterStrategy trait, get_filter(level), Language::from_extension(), smart_truncate()
• discover::registry: classify_command(), rewrite_command()
• discover::rules: static pattern/rule data (PATTERNS, RULES, IGNORED_PREFIXES)
• utils: strip_ansi(), truncate(), format_tokens()

Changes needed

1. Add [lib] section to Cargo.toml (name = "rtk", path = "src/lib.rs")
2. Create src/lib.rs with pub mod for the modules listed above
3. Change mod → pub mod in src/main.rs for those modules
4. Ensure src/discover/mod.rs submodules are pub where needed

The [lib] target coexists with the existing [bin]. cargo build produces both, no breaking change.

Out of scope for this issue

The 57+ *_cmd.rs modules (git.rs, cargo_cmd.rs, etc.) use println! and std::process::exit(). Refactoring those to return String is a separate effort that can be tracked in a follow-up issue.

Alternatives Considered

• Fork with lib support: works but fragments the ecosystem; you don't want forks if you can avoid it.
• Separate rtk-lib crate: splits the codebase; inlining the [lib] target in the existing repo is simpler

Also a fork would require publishing under a different name to crates.io , which is undesireable.

[pszymkowiak]

wshm · Automated triage by AI

🔍 Automated Triage

✨ Category	feature
🟡 Priority	medium
🎯 Confidence	95%

Summary

Well-scoped proposal to add a [lib] target to Cargo.toml and create src/lib.rs with public re-exports, enabling downstream crates to consume rtk as a library dependency.

💡 This looks like a simple fix that could be auto-resolved. Use /wshm fix to attempt it.

📁 Relevant files

• Cargo.toml
• src/lib.rs
• src/main.rs
• src/discover/mod.rs

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Triaged automatically by wshm · This is an automated analysis, not a human review.