Renkei

A package manager for AI agentic workflows

Features | Installation | Quick Start | Usage | Supported Backends

AI tool configurations — skills, hooks, agents, MCP servers — are scattered across different tools, unversioned, and impossible to share. Renkei (rk) packages them into a single portable format and deploys them across your AI tools simultaneously.

rk install git@github.com:team/our-workflows   # Install from git
rk install ./local-package                      # Install from local path
rk list                                          # See what's installed
rk doctor                                        # Run health checks

Features

• Multi-backend deployment — One package installs to Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and the shared .agents/ standard, all at once
• Portable format — A renkei.json manifest plus convention directories (skills/, agents/, hooks/) that any team member can install
• Lockfile & integrity — rk.lock records exact git SHAs and SHA-256 hashes for reproducible installs
• Scoped installs — Project-level by default, global with -g
• Conflict detection — Interactive resolution in TTY, hard errors in CI, --force to override
• Atomic rollback — If any backend fails, all changes are rolled back
• Workspaces — Monorepo support for multi-package repositories
• Health diagnostics — rk doctor checks deployed files, integrity hashes, env vars, and backend availability

Installation

Quick install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MeryllEssig/renkei/main/install.sh | sh

Auto-detects your OS and architecture. Installs to ~/.local/bin by default (override with RK_INSTALL_DIR).

From source

git clone git@github.com:MeryllEssig/renkei.git
cd renkei
cargo install --path .

Quick Start

Create a package

my-workflow/
├── renkei.json
├── skills/
│   └── code-review/
│       └── SKILL.md
├── agents/
│   └── researcher.md
└── hooks/
    └── pre-commit.json

{
  "name": "@team/my-workflow",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Shared AI workflow for our team",
  "author": "Team",
  "license": "MIT",
  "backends": ["claude", "cursor"]
}

Install it

rk install ./my-workflow

Skills, agents, and hooks are deployed to .claude/ and .cursor/ in your project. A rk.lock is created to track what was installed.

Distribute it

rk package --bump minor   # Creates a versioned .tar.gz archive

Share via git or distribute the archive directly.

Usage

Command	Description
rk install <source>	Install from git URL or local path
rk install	Restore from rk.lock
rk install -g <source>	Install globally (~/)
rk install --tag v1.0	Pin to a git tag
rk install <source> -m <member>	Install only the named workspace member (repeatable, CSV-aware)
rk install <source> --yes	Skip the preinstall confirmation prompt (required in CI / non-TTY)
rk install <source> --allow-build	Skip the build confirmation for bundled local MCP servers (required in CI / non-TTY)
rk install --link <source>	Symlink the source instead of copying (live dev mode); for local MCPs, also symlinks ~/.renkei/mcp/<name>/
rk uninstall @scope/name	Remove a package
rk list	Show installed packages
rk doctor	Run health diagnostics
rk package	Create distributable archive
rk package --bump <level>	Bump version and package
rk config	Interactive backend configuration
rk config set defaults.backends claude,cursor	Set backends
rk migrate ./path	Convert a directory to a Renkei package

Tip

Run rk install with no arguments to restore all packages from an existing rk.lock — useful for onboarding or CI.

Supported Backends

Backend	Skills	Agents	Hooks	MCP
Claude Code	.claude/skills/	.claude/agents/	settings.json	~/.claude.json
Cursor	.cursor/rules/	.cursor/agents/	hooks.json	mcp.json
Codex	.agents/skills/	.toml files	hooks.json	config.toml
Gemini CLI	.gemini/skills/	.md files	settings.json	settings.json
Agents (shared)	.agents/skills/	—	—	—

Renkei auto-detects which backends are available and deploys to all of them. Override with --backend or rk config.

Manifest Reference

The renkei.json manifest supports these fields:

{
  "name": "@scope/name",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "...",
  "author": "...",
  "license": "MIT",
  "backends": ["claude", "cursor", "codex", "gemini"],
  "scope": "any",
  "keywords": [],
  "mcp": {
    "my-server": {
      "command": "node",
      "entrypoint": "dist/index.js",
      "build": [["bun", "install"], ["bun", "run", "build"]]
    }
  },
  "requiredEnv": { },
  "workspace": ["packages/a", "packages/b"],
  "messages": {
    "preinstall": "Configure the GitLab MCP server before installing.",
    "postinstall": "Run `rk doctor` to verify the install."
  }
}

Field	Required	Description
name	Yes	Scoped package name (@scope/name)
version	Yes	Semver version
description	Yes	Short description
author	Yes	Author name
license	Yes	License identifier
backends	Yes	Target backends
scope	No	"any" (default), "global", or "project"
mcp	No	MCP server configurations. External servers use the native command/args/env block. Local MCPs add entrypoint (relative path inside mcp/<name>/) and build (array of argv steps). Renkei copies the source from mcp/<name>/ to ~/.renkei/mcp/<name>/ (always global, regardless of the package scope), runs the build, and registers the absolute entrypoint with the backend. See doc/prd/mcp.md.
requiredEnv	No	Required environment variables
workspace	No	Monorepo member paths
messages	No	preinstall / postinstall install-time notices (≤ 2000 chars each)

Artifact Format

Artifacts use a neutral Markdown format with optional YAML frontmatter. Renkei translates them to each backend's native format during deployment.

---
description: Reviews code for best practices
---

Review the code changes and provide feedback on:
- Code quality and readability
- Potential bugs or edge cases
- Performance considerations

Note

Hooks use a JSON format with abstract events (pre-commit, post-save, etc.) that Renkei maps to each backend's hook system.

Development

git config core.hooksPath .githooks  # Enable pre-commit checks (fmt, clippy, test)
cargo test              # Run all tests
cargo test -- --nocapture  # With output
cargo clippy            # Lint
cargo fmt               # Format