Rune Agent

Rune Agent is the AI coding assistant built into Rune. It lives in the same workspace as your code, so it can read and edit files, search and navigate the codebase, run commands, and carry a conversation, all without leaving the editor.

The agent is distributed as the rune-agent package. Install it from Rune's console with pkg install rune-agent (or run console pkg install rune-agent from the command prompt).

This page introduces what the agent is and what it can do. More detailed guides will follow in this section.

Two ways to ask

The agent has two entry points, both command prompt commands, depending on how much you need from it:

• Quick question (?): a one-off question about the code you are looking at, answered in a floating window. See below.
• Chat (agent): agent opens a conversation tab. This is the full experience: a back-and-forth dialogue where the agent can use tools, edit files, run code, and work through a task with you. You can pass a saved conversation ID to resume it, and an optional model to use for the session. Without an explicit model, chat uses the default alias (see Models).

Type either at the command prompt. When the editor is in modal mode, the chat input is itself a modal editor, so you get the same motions and text objects you use everywhere else while composing messages.

Quick questions with ?

? <message> asks a one-off question and shows the answer in a floating window, without opening a conversation tab. It is meant to be fast: each ? is its own throwaway session with no saved history.

What the model sees with ?:

• The files you have open. The full contents of every open and focused file are put in context, along with their paths, so you can ask about the code in front of you without copying anything in.
• Your project instructions. Any AGENTS.md guidance for the workspace is applied, so answers respect your conventions.
• The workspace root, for orientation.

It does not receive your cursor position, your selection, or your conversation history. So phrase the question to say what you mean ("what does the retry loop in this file do?") rather than relying on where the cursor is.

? can still use tools when it needs to, so it can read another file or check a reference to answer well. But it is tuned to answer quickly and avoid wandering the codebase. That makes it a good fit for:

• "What does this file (or function) do?"
• "Why might this be failing?"
• "How do I use this API / write this in Go?"
• Quick explanations and one-line fixes you want to read, not apply.

Reach for a full chat instead when you want the agent to make changes across the project, work through a multi-step task, or keep context over a back-and-forth.

By default ? uses the same model as chat. If you prefer a faster or cheaper model for quick questions, point the query alias at one (see Models); whenever that alias is set, ? uses it instead.

Skills

Skills are focused capability bundles the agent loads on demand, and sub-agents let it spawn scoped, parallel workers such as explore and plan. See Skills for how they are discovered, managed, and authored.

Memory

We are building a cutting-edge memory system for Rune Agent that lets it carry durable learnings across conversations, such as architecture decisions, project conventions, and prior fixes, and surface them when they are relevant. It is in active development and will land in an upcoming Rune Agent release.

The agent shell command

Alongside ? and agent, Rune Agent registers an agent command in Rune's console for inspecting and managing models, conversations, skills, tools, and configuration. Run agent help to see everything it offers. The most useful subcommands:

Command	What it does
agent models	List available models with their context window sizes.
agent model [<id>]	Show the default model, or a conversation's model.
agent effort [<level>]	Show or set the default reasoning effort.
agent max_tokens [<n>]	Show or set the max output tokens.
agent chats list	List saved conversations.
agent chats show <id>	Show a conversation's history.
agent chats export [--audit] <id>	Export a conversation or its audit log.
agent chats compact <id>	Compact a conversation into a summarized copy.
agent chats fork <id>	Fork a conversation at a chosen message.
agent chats clear <id>	Clear a conversation (its contents are archived).
agent skills ...	Inspect and manage skills (see above).
agent tools	List the tools the agent can use.
agent mcp	Show MCP server status and tool stats.
agent config	Show the current configuration.

Focused chat commands

When you are focused on an open chat tab, use the Rune command prompt's chat commands to act on that conversation:

Command	What it does
chatmodel [<model>]	Show or switch the focused chat's model.
chateffort [<level>]	Show or set the focused chat's reasoning effort.
chatmaxtokens [<n>]	Show or set the focused chat's max output tokens.
chatskill <skill> [args]	Load a skill into the focused chat.
chatclear	Clear the focused chat and archive its previous contents.
chatcompact	Compact the focused chat into a summarized copy.
chatfork	Fork the focused chat at a selected message.
chatexport [--audit]	Export the focused chat or its audit log.
chatlog	Show the focused chat's LLM token audit log.

These are command-prompt commands, not agent shell command subcommands and not chat-message slash commands. They are useful when you want completion, history, or key bindings from Rune's normal command surface while operating on the chat you are currently viewing.

Models

The agent works with configurable model providers, including OpenAI, Codex, Anthropic, Claude, Gemini, and local models. You can switch the focused conversation's model or reasoning effort with the chatmodel and chateffort command prompt commands.

Model aliases

Which model the agent uses for each kind of work is controlled by named aliases:

• default: the model new chats use when you do not pass one.
• query: the model ? uses for quick questions.
• compact: the model used to compact (summarize) long conversations.
• dream: the model used for memory consolidation.

An alias is just a name that resolves to a real model, and it works anywhere a model is accepted. You manage aliases with the models alias command from the Rune console:

Command	What it does
models alias	List the aliases and the models they resolve to.
models alias set <name> <provider/model>	Point an alias at a model.
models alias remove <name>	Clear an alias.

For example, to make chat use Codex's flagship model and route quick questions, compaction, and memory consolidation to smaller, cheaper models:

models alias set default codex/gpt-5.5
models alias set query codex/gpt-5.4-mini
models alias set compact codex/gpt-5.4-mini
models alias set dream codex/gpt-5.4-mini

The models alias <name> <provider/model> shorthand (without set) does the same thing. Run models to see every available provider/model name.

When an alias is unset

default is the one alias to set if you only set one. Any other alias that you leave unset (query, compact, dream) falls back to default, so setting default alone gives every kind of work a sensible model. Set the others only when you want them to differ.

default itself, when unset, resolves to the flagship model of the provider you most recently signed in to. So once you authenticate a provider (see Providers), every alias works out of the box, and signing in to a newer provider moves them over automatically. Set an alias explicitly whenever you want to pin a specific model instead.

Connecting external tools (MCP)

Rune Agent is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) client. Declare external MCP servers in an .mcp.json file and the agent connects to them, discovers their tools, and makes them available in chat, extending what it can do with third-party integrations.

Project instructions

The agent reads AGENTS.md files from your project, walking up from the workspace root, and folds those instructions into how it works. Use them to teach it your conventions, so its output matches your project without repeating yourself each session.

For the full list of extensions.rune-agent.config settings, including hooks and appearance, see Configuration.