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jahala
tilth
Rust2026–2026
jahala / tilth

tilth

Smart code reading for humans and AI agents. Definitions, callers, dependencies and function-level diffs from tree-sitter. One binary, no index. MCP server + CLI. Install: cargo install tilth or npx tilth

Developer ToolsCommand LineSystems & InfrastructureScience & EngineeringAI & Machine Learning
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3Distinct people
15Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
362GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Smart code reading for humans and AI agents. Definitions, callers, dependencies and function-level diffs from tree-sitter. One binary, no index. MCP server + CLI. Install: cargo install tilth or npx tilth

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by week15 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2026-02-09 22:18:13 UTC to 2026-09-12 04:13:04 UTC. Weeks start Monday, UTC.

01232026-02-09 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 2 submissions, 1 commentsFeb 92026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 2 submissions, 1 comments2026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 commentsMay 252026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-10 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-08-10 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-17 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-08-17 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-24 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-08-24 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-08-31 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-08-31 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-09-07 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-09-07 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-09-14 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsSep 7

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Feb 92026-02-09 00:00:00 UTC2026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC321
Feb 162026-02-16 00:00:00 UTC2026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC110
Feb 232026-02-23 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 22026-03-02 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC321
Mar 92026-03-09 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC101
Mar 162026-03-16 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 232026-03-23 00:00:00 UTC2026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 302026-03-30 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC101
Apr 62026-04-06 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 132026-04-13 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 202026-04-20 00:00:00 UTC2026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 272026-04-27 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC101
May 42026-05-04 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC000
May 112026-05-11 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC000
May 182026-05-18 00:00:00 UTC2026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC101
May 252026-05-25 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 12026-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC101
Jun 82026-06-08 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 152026-06-15 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC202
Jun 222026-06-22 00:00:00 UTC2026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 292026-06-29 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 62026-07-06 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 132026-07-13 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 202026-07-20 00:00:00 UTC2026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 272026-07-27 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 32026-08-03 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-10 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 102026-08-10 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-17 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 172026-08-17 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-24 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 242026-08-24 00:00:00 UTC2026-08-31 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 312026-08-31 00:00:00 UTC2026-09-07 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 72026-09-07 00:00:00 UTC2026-09-14 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

15 sources
jahala·Mar 9, 2026
Have been tinkering with a few different projects: - Tilth: Smart(er) code reading for humans and AI agents. Reduces LLM token use and cost by ~40% (benchmarked) https://github.com/jahala/tilth - mrkd: Native macOS .md viewer (+preview in Finder) that imports iTerm2 and VSCode themes https://github.com/jahala/mrkd - O-O: Self-updating articles concept with polyglot (bash/html) files. No server, no database. https://github.com/jahala/o-o
In Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)
jahala·Mar 8, 2026Submission

Show HN: Tilth v0.5.0 –> ~40% cheaper AI code navigation (160 runs, 3 models)

Smart code reading for humans and AI agents. Tilth is what happens when you give ripgrep, tree-sitter, and cat a shared brain. — v0.5.0 was about figuring out why models weren’t using tilth tools consistently — even when they were available. Results vs baseline (built-in tools only): Sonnet 4.6: -44% $/correct (84% → 94% accuracy, 31% fewer turns) Opus 4.6: -39% $/correct (91% → 92% accuracy, 37% fewer turns) Haiku 4.5: -38% $/correct (54% → 73% accuracy, 7% fewer turns) — https://github.com/jahala/tilth/ Full results: https://github.com/jahala/tilth/blob/main/benchmark/README.m... — PS: I don't have the budget to run the benchmark a lot (especially with Opus), so if any token whales has capacity to run some benchmarks, please feel free to PR results.
4 points · Open discussion
jahala·Mar 5, 2026Submission

Show HN: Reduce LLM token use by ~30% with this MCP/CLI tool(Claude benchmarked)

Smart code reading for humans and AI agents. Tilth is what happens when you give ripgrep, tree-sitter, and cat a shared brain. -- v0.4.4: Added adaptive 2nd-hop impact analysis to callers search — when a function has ≤10 unique callers, tilth automatically traces callers-of-callers in a single scan. First full 26-task Opus baseline (previously 5 hard tasks only). Haiku adoption improved from 42% to 78%, flipping Haiku from a cost regression to -38% $/correct. v0.4.5: Bumped TOKEN_THRESHOLD from 3500 to 6000 estimated tokens (~24KB), so mid-sized files return full content instead of an outline that agents then read back via 5–7 sequential --section calls. Fixed two major regressions: gin_radix_tree (+35% → ~tie) and rg_search_dispatch (+90% → -26% win). Sonnet hit 100% accuracy (52/52) and -34% $/correct overall. -- https://github.com/jaha
Read the rest
la/tilth/ Full results: https://github.com/jahala/tilth/blob/main/benchmark/README.m... -- PS: I dont have the budget to run the benchmark a lot (especially with Opus), so if any token whales has capacity to run some benchmarks, please feel free to PR results.
2 points · Open discussion
jahala·Feb 17, 2026Submission

Show HN: Tilth v0.4.1 – 29% cheaper Sonnet, 22% on Opus (benchmark: 114 runs)

Smart code reading for humans and AI agents. Tilth is what happens when you give ripgrep, tree-sitter, and cat a shared brain. -- v0.4.0 added search ranking, sibling surfacing, transitive callees, cognitive load stripping, smart truncation, and bloom filters. Got -17% on Sonnet, -20% on Opus. v0.4.1 was pure instruction tuning — zero code changes that alone jumped Sonnet adoption from 89% to 98% and $ cost/correct answer from -17% to -29%. The instruction tuning result surprised me. The model already knew tilth tools existed — it just wasn’t choosing them consistently. Making the replacement relationship explicit in the tool description was worth more than all the search ranking work in v0.4.0. Haiku remains the outlier — only 42% tilth adoption despite instruction tuning. -- https://github.com/jahala/tilth/ Full results: https://github.
Read the rest
com/jahala/tilth/blob/main/benchmark/README.m... -- PS: I dont have the budget to run the benchmark a lot (especially with Opus), so if any token whales has capacity to run some benchmarks, please feel free to PR results.
2 points · Open discussion
jahala·Feb 14, 2026Submission

Show HN: Tilth v0.3 – 17% cheaper AI code navigation (279 runs, 3 Claude models)

tilth gives AI agents structural code intelligence (tree-sitter definitions, callee resolution, smart outlining) via MCP. I benchmarked it on 21 code navigation tasks across 4 real repos (Express, FastAPI, Gin, ripgrep). -> https://github.com/jahala/tilth Results: Sonnet 4.5 — 26% cheaper per correct answer (79% → 86% accuracy). Opus 4.6 — 14% cheaper (and the only model+mode combo to crack the hardest task). Haiku 4.5 — 82% cheaper when forced to use tilth (69% → 100% accuracy at $0.04/answer). We measure “cost per correct answer” — what you’d expect to spend before getting a usable answer under retry. A wrong answer isn’t a cheap success. Interesting finding: smarter models adopt MCP tools voluntarily (Sonnet 95%, Opus 94%), but Haiku ignores them (9%). Instruction tuning didn’t help. Removing the overlapping built-in tools did. https:/
Read the rest
/github.com/jahala/tilth/blob/main/benchmark/README.m... PS: I dont have the budget to run the benchmark a lot with Opus, so if any token whales has capacity to run some benchmarks, please feel free to PR results.
3 points · Open discussion
jahala·Feb 12, 2026
I implemented this hash (read and edit) approach in tilth if you want to test it out. https://github.com/jahala/tilth its on npm and cargo: - cargo install tilth - npx tilth then tilth install claude-code/windsurf/cursor --edit (--edit flag is needed) I made "tilth" a few days ago, since I'm consistently trying to get the LLMs to use tools more efficiently and spend less tokens doing it -- original tilth post from Monday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46952321
In Improving 15 LLMs at Coding in One Afternoon. Only the Harness Changed
jahala·Feb 9, 2026Submission

Show HN: Tilth – I spent tokens so my agents would stop wasting them (~4k Rust)

I'm an "ideas person" who messes around with AI on a low budget. I got tired of watching my tokens vanish and context windows filling up while agents fumbled around trying to find the right thing. Agents don't flail like they used to with shell tools, but there are still weak/blind spots and back-and-forth episodes — especially when using tools in combination/sequence. So I built "tilth" today. Or rather, AI built it — every line is Opus 4.6. I spent a lot of my precious tokens getting it to "not shit" (at least several of the different vendors' AI overlords assure me it's not shit). It's ~3,900 lines of Rust. I'm positive HN will let me know if its shit after all. The idea: give agents code-aware reads with a token budget. Read a large file and you get a tree-sitter outline (function signatures, types, imports) instead of the raw text. D
Read the rest
rill into specific line ranges when you need detail. Search for a symbol and definitions come first (via AST), ranked by proximity to what you're editing. read — structural outline for large files, full content for small ones, line ranges to drill in search — symbol (tree-sitter AST), literal text, or regex. Definitions before usages. map — codebase overview in one call files — glob matching with token estimates, respects .gitignore session — tracks what the agent has looked at Tree-sitter adds structural awareness for 10 languages on top. Uses ripgrep internals for search, memmap for large files. Runs as a CLI or MCP server over stdio. Single binary, no indexing, no cloud. MIT licensed. To try it: cargo install tilth tilth map . tilth search "your_function_name" . tilth read src/main.rs tilth install claude-code I hope it helps other people who, like me, would rather spend their tokens building things than watching an agent navigate. -- *tilth* — the state of soil that's been prepared for planting. Good tilth means structured ground where things can take root. GitHub: https://github.com/jahala/tilth
10 points · Open discussion

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