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RuneRune

Getting Started

Zero → your first Rune task in a few minutes. New to the idea? Read What is Rune? first. This guide is one linear path: install → write → run.

1. Install

Section titled “1. Install”

Pick any method from the installation guide. The quickest, if you have Go:

Terminal window
go install github.com/rune-task-runner/rune/cmd/rune@latest

Confirm it works:

Terminal window
rune --version

No Go toolchain? Grab a prebuilt binary or use the container image — see Installation. The steps below are identical afterward.

2. Write a Runefile

Section titled “2. Write a Runefile”

Create a file named Runefile in your project root:

# Greet someone by name (defaults to "world").
greet name="world":
    @echo "Hello, "{{quote(name)}}"!"

A few things to notice:

  • The comment directly above a task becomes its documentation (shown by rune --list).
  • name="world" is a parameter with a default value; {{quote(name)}} passes it to the command as one quoted argument.
  • The leading @ tells Rune not to echo the command line before running it.

Bodies use significant indentation (like Python): indent the command lines under the task.

Cross-platform: the default shell executor is a pure-Go shell (mvdan.cc/sh), so this task behaves the same on Linux, macOS, and Windows — no WSL or Git-Bash needed.

3. Run it

Section titled “3. Run it”
Terminal window
rune              # show the version + available tasks (runs nothing)


rune greet        # run a task by name
# → Hello, world!


rune greet Ada    # pass an argument
# → Hello, Ada!

That’s it — you’ve installed Rune and run a task.

4. Add a dependency

Section titled “4. Add a dependency”

Tasks can depend on other tasks, which run first (each at most once per invocation):

greet name="world":
    @echo "Hello, "{{quote(name)}}"!"


# `check` depends on `greet`, so `greet` runs first.
check: greet
    @echo "All good ✓"
Terminal window
rune check
# → Hello, world!
# → All good ✓

5. See what’s available

Section titled “5. See what’s available”
Terminal window
rune --list            # list documented tasks
rune --dry-run check   # show the execution plan without running anything

A runnable, CI-verified copy

Section titled “A runnable, CI-verified copy”

A runnable version of this example lives at docs/examples/getting-started/ and is verified on every CI run, so it always reflects working syntax. Run its check task directly:

Terminal window
rune --file docs/examples/getting-started/Runefile check

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”