RAC v0.8.6 - the "meet Explorer" release

The "meet Explorer" release — see your whole knowledge base, understand how it connects, and fix what's wrong, all without leaving the terminal.

pip install 'requirements-as-code[explorer]'
rac explorer

RAC has always treated the product docs you already write in Markdown - requirements, decisions, roadmaps, prompts, designs - as a knowledge base. Until now you worked with it one command at a time. Explorer gives that knowledge base a home: an interactive screen you open in your terminal and move through like a workspace. Press / and ask for anything.

See everything, without hunting through folders

Open Explorer in any repository and you get the whole picture at once: every artifact, grouped by type, with the repository's health and what needs attention up front. Pick any one to see it in full - its details, whether it's valid, what it links to, and anything wrong with it. First time in a repo? Explorer shows you around. Coming back? It drops you right back where you left off.

Press / for anything

No commands to memorize. Tap / and start typing - search and actions share one box:

/health             how healthy is this repository?
/find checkout      search by title, ID, or keyword
/open ACME-01JY...  jump straight to an artifact
/import notes.docx  bring an outside document in

Type a name and it searches; type a command and it runs. You don't have to decide which - Explorer figures out what you mean.

Know what needs attention

/health (or just h) reads the repository at a glance: an overall score, broken down into completeness, relationships, validation, and coverage, plus a ranked list of what to look at. Every item on that list is live - select it and you land on the exact artifact it's about.

Understand how it all connects

Product knowledge is a web, not a list. From any artifact you can see what it links to, what depends on it, and how it evolved. Step from one artifact to the next and follow the thread across your whole repository.

Why you care: before you change a decision, you can answer "what's affected if I do this?" in a couple of keystrokes - instead of guessing, or finding out later.

Get from "something's wrong" to "fixed"

Explorer doesn't just point at problems - it helps you act on them. Each recommendation explains what's wrong, why it matters, and what to do about it. When you're ready to edit, one key opens the artifact in your own editor - VS Code, Cursor, Vim, whatever you use. Bringing in an outside document? /import converts it and shows you exactly what it will add before anything is written. Explorer never changes your files without showing you first.

Make it yours

Explorer remembers the repositories you've opened and the last thing you were looking at, so returning is one keystroke. Set a theme, switch the mascot on or off - it's a small preferences file, no account, no cloud, nothing to sign into. (Yes, there's a mascot: a little lantern-carrying explorer. You can turn it off.)

Built to stay out of your way

Everything works from the keyboard - no mouse, happy over SSH, readable in any terminal, and nothing depends on color. And everything Explorer shows you is still available as a plain command, so your scripts and CI keep working exactly as before.

Also in this release (since v0.7.3)

Upgrading from the last published version brings everything from the releases in between, too: start new artifacts from built-in templates (rac new), permanent IDs that survive renames and moves, search and lookup (rac find, rac resolve), whole-repository checks (rac validate docs/ and rac review docs/), and a one-command upgrade for existing repos (rac migrate metadata).

Upgrading

Explorer is an optional add-on, so nothing changes unless you opt in:

pip install --upgrade 'requirements-as-code[explorer]'
rac explorer

Already using RAC? All your existing files, commands, and scripts keep working exactly as before.