title	Directives
description	Text RTK puts in front of the agent — shipped directives, your own, how they land in the instruction file and what they cost
sidebar	order 5

Directives

A directive is text RTK writes in front of the agent. It is how RTK reaches what no transform can touch: how the agent writes, which commands it uses.

[[directive]]
use = "terse-output"

[[directive]]
name = "house-rules"
file = ".rtk/directives/house-rules.md"

[[directive]]
use   = "rtk-awareness"
level = "default"

Key	Notes
use / text / file	exactly one: a shipped directive, inline text, or a file relative to the pipeline file
name	defaults to use
channel	awareness_file (default): RTK's instruction file, present every turn
enabled
module options	level for rtk-awareness

Shipped

Directive	Ships	What it does
rtk-awareness	on	the awareness levels (default · high · full); [awareness] in config.toml still applies
terse-output	off	terse prose; code, paths, commands and errors are never abbreviated, and destructive-action warnings stay full sentences
route-tasks	generated	written whenever a task has an upstream: tells the agent the exact rtk <task> syntax

A file containing nothing but a directive is a valid pipeline and leaves rtk:default intact — see rtk:terse.

How they land

All enabled directives are rendered and joined in declaration order into one block, written once between RTK's markers in the agent's instruction file. Re-running rtk init rewrites that block and nothing else.

What they cost

A directive sits in context every turn. rtk gain shows directives as net — output tokens saved minus the standing cost.

Trust

A directive changes the agent's behaviour. rtk pipeline show prints every directive verbatim, and rtk init shows a project's directives in full before asking to trust the file.