rune

rune moves every command in a monorepo out of the scripts blocks and into a single typed rune.config.ts at the root. Packages stop carrying command strings and call scripts by name instead.

In a workspace with twenty packages, the same vitest run --coverage --reporter=dot ends up copied into twenty package.json files, drifting a flag at a time. Define it once; reference it everywhere.

The config

// rune.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from '@gio-labs/rune';
 
export default defineConfig({
  scripts: {
    build: { command: 'tsc --build', description: 'Compile every package' },
    test: {
      command: 'vitest run',
      env: { NODE_ENV: 'test' },
      dependsOn: ['build'],
    },
    dev: { parallel: ['dev:api', 'dev:web'] },
    'dev:api': { command: 'tsx watch src/server.ts', cwd: 'packages/api' },
    'dev:web': { command: 'vite', cwd: 'packages/web' },
  },
});

{ "scripts": { "test": "rune run test" } }

Why it works this way

• The config is real TypeScript, but it never loads Node. Types are stripped and the file runs in an embedded JavaScript engine, so a warm run lands under 5 ms. A config that had to resolve node_modules would cost as much as the scripts it describes. rune.platform, rune.env and rune.isCI replace process, and relative imports still work.
• Per-platform commands are declared, not branched. command: { default: 'xdg-open …', win32: 'start …', darwin: 'open …' }.
• The child gets the real terminal, rune exits with the child’s code, and rune’s own diagnostics go to stderr — so stdout belongs to the script.
• Arguments survive Windows. Nearly every tool in node_modules/.bin is a batch file that re-reads its own arguments, so rune escapes for both readers when a command resolves to .cmd or .bat.
• One native binary per platform, resolved through optional dependencies — nothing compiles on install and no postinstall script runs. The Linux builds are statically linked and checked in both a musl and a glibc container before release.

Rune is a script registry and a runner, not a task graph: no caching, no topological ordering. Turbo and Nx sit on top of it and keep doing that part — add rune.config.ts to their declared inputs, since the command strings they hash no longer change.

Guides and the full CLI reference live at rune.gio-labs.com.