Usage data

Downloads say how often a package was fetched; they don't say whether an item is used. When this instance collects usage, rmk counts, for the items it installed, how often each is installed and removed, in which AI tool, how often it runs and how those runs end, and sends those counts to this instance.

The counts are for everyone choosing an item, and for moderators and authors: what's worth keeping up, and what a deprecation or a yank would reach. They show on the item page (Reading the numbers). Only totals are kept: nothing says who, or where.

Root decides, for the whole instance, in Admin › Settings. The change applies at once and is recorded in the audit log.

• Off (a new instance's setting): rmk reports nothing, and the instance refuses usage reports.
• People choose: rmk reports unless the person turns it off (Turning it off).
• Required: every rmk that installs from this instance reports, and nothing turns it off.

rmk asks the instance for its policy at most once a day, and at rmk login. The first time it reports to an instance it says so, once, with a link here.

A report is a list of daily counts. This is a whole line, exactly as it travels:

{ "day": "2026-10-01", "item": "@platform/code-reviewer", "version": "1.4.0",
  "tool": "claude-code", "event": "run", "trigger": "model",
  "outcome": "success", "count": 3 }

• event: install, remove or run.
• trigger, for a run: typed by the person (user), chosen by the model (model), used inside another agent (agent), in CI (ci), or unknown.
• outcome, for a run: success, error, cancelled, or unknown when the tool doesn't say.

Reports go only to the instance the item was installed from, with your access token, at the end of an rmk command. rmk telemetry preview prints what is waiting to be sent.

Never: who you are, your project or repository (its name, folder, remote or branch), prompts or arguments, file contents or paths, what a tool was given or returned, session ids, environment values, or anything about items rmk didn't install. Your token is sent to authorise the report, and nothing about it is stored with the counts.

Where the instance lets people choose:

rmk telemetry off       # stop, on this machine, and delete what's waiting
rmk telemetry on        # report again
rmk telemetry status    # each instance's policy, and whether rmk reports to it
rmk telemetry preview   # what would be sent now

Setting RMK_TELEMETRY=0 in the environment stops it too, for one script or a whole machine. Where usage is required, neither works: rmk telemetry off says so, and rmk keeps reporting to that instance.

Installs and removals are counted by rmk itself. Runs need the AI tool to tell rmk, so when it reports, rmk install adds one hook, rmk telemetry hook <tool>, to the tool's settings in your home folder (never a project's, so nothing is committed), and says so. rmk telemetry off removes it.

Hooks, rules, output styles, status lines, permission policies and LSP servers don't run on their own: they count installs only. Codex runs a new hook only after you review it in its /hooks screen.

The instance adds each report to daily totals per item, version, tool, event, trigger and outcome, and keeps them 90 days. Nothing about the person, the token or the project is stored with them. A line it can't count (an item it doesn't have, a day too old) is ignored.

An item's usage shows on its page as soon as any install or run of it was reported in the last 30 days. Without any, the Overview says so and shows its usual cards. Small numbers are shown as they are: a few runs may be one person trying the item out.

Root can set a minimum in Admin › Settings: an item then shows its usage only from that many installs plus runs in 30 days, and below it the Overview names the minimum. It keeps a handful of events from looking like a trend; it can't tell one busy person from many.

• Installs, 30 days: installs reported by rmk, once per tool (an item installed for two tools counts twice), with the removals and the all-time downloads under it.
• Runs, 30 days: how often the AI tools ran it, the average per day, and the share that succeeded among runs whose outcome was reported, from 20 such runs on. Hooks, rules, output styles, status lines, permission policies, LSP servers and bundles don't run on their own: they show installs instead.
• Works in: each tool's share of the runs (or installs), with a bar in each tool's colour.
• Usage, last 14 days: runs per day, today left out because it's still filling up, with the busiest day. Its days are UTC days, since usage is added up per UTC day, unlike the other times in the app; then runs by tool, by what started them (typed, chosen by the model, used inside an agent, CI) and by how they ended. A tool that can't report this item's runs is named there (What each AI tool reports).
• Versions: runs and installs per version over 30 days, also in the deprecate and yank dialogs.

When root turns usage off, what's stored keeps showing, with a note, until its 90 days run out.