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WanSatya Campus edited this page Jun 18, 2026 · 2 revisions

Git stores history. Rune stores understanding.

Rune Context is a lightweight, local-first repository context protocol for code LLMs.

Rune helps coding agents understand large codebases without repeatedly consuming thousands of lines of source code.


Why Rune Exists

Humans do not understand repositories by reading every file.

Instead, developers rely on:

  • architecture documents
  • dependency relationships
  • coding conventions
  • feature maps
  • recent changes

Modern code LLMs often lack these layers and repeatedly re-read the same files, consuming massive amounts of context.

Rune provides a persistent understanding layer for repositories.


Vision

Every repository should contain two important folders:

.git/
.rune/

.git/ explains:

What changed?

.rune/ explains:

What does the codebase mean?

Git stores history.

Rune stores understanding.


Design Principles

Local First

Rune works offline.

No cloud.

No accounts.

No servers.


Human Readable

Everything inside .rune/ uses:

  • Markdown
  • JSON

Nothing is hidden behind proprietary formats.


Language Agnostic

Rune itself does not depend on:

  • Python
  • Node.js
  • Java

Language support is provided by plugins.


Incremental

Rune updates only changed files.

Avoid full reindexing whenever possible.


Simplicity

Rune is intentionally small.

It is not:

  • an IDE
  • an agent framework
  • a vector database
  • a SaaS platform
  • a replacement for Git

Rune provides context.

Agents provide intelligence.


Repository Structure

.rune/
├── spec.md
├── architecture.md
├── conventions.md
├── graph.json
├── files/
├── features/
├── ownership/
├── sessions/
└── cache/

Commands

Initialize a repository:

rune init

Build context:

rune index

Refresh changed files:

rune update

Retrieve context:

rune context "Add Google OAuth"

Validate repository health:

rune doctor

Roadmap

v0.1

  • Core CLI
  • Linux support
  • macOS support
  • Windows support
  • Dependency graph
  • Incremental indexing

v0.2

  • Python plugin
  • TypeScript plugin
  • Go plugin

v0.3

  • Feature maps
  • Session memory
  • Ownership maps

v1.0

  • Stable specification
  • Plugin ecosystem
  • Broad agent compatibility

Documentation


Philosophy

Git answers:

What happened?

Rune answers:

What does it mean?

Rune Context

Git for repository understanding.


Introduction


Reference


Project


Ecosystem


Future RFCs

  • RCP-001 — Repository Format
  • RCP-002 — Plugin Protocol
  • RCP-003 — Graph Format
  • RCP-004 — File Summary Format
  • RCP-005 — Feature Map Format
  • RCP-006 — Ownership Metadata
  • RCP-007 — Session Memory
  • RCP-008 — Context Retrieval API
  • RCP-009 — Incremental Indexing
  • RCP-010 — Multi-Agent Coordination

Philosophy

Git stores history.

Rune stores understanding.

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