There's a specific kind of frustration that comes from trying to learn something deeply while sitting at a computer.
You open a topic — say, "distributed systems" or "linear algebra." You pull up ChatGPT or Claude in the browser. You start chatting, getting somewhere, building a mental model. Then you alt-tab to your editor to write down what you just learned. Then back to the browser because you have a follow-up question. Then back to the editor. Then you realize your notes are a mess of half-finished thoughts because you kept breaking your own flow.
I hit this loop constantly. So I built something to fix it.
What is Rune?
Rune is a terminal-based AI note-taking companion written in Go. It lives entirely in your terminal, chats with local or cloud LLMs, and writes structured markdown notes directly to your local filesystem — all inside a single TUI window.
The short version: you type a topic, Rune guides you through it, and your notes write themselves as you talk.
The Problem I Was Actually Solving
The issue wasn't that the tools were bad. ChatGPT is great. Obsidian is great. The problem was the gap between them — the constant context switching that breaks concentration and leaves notes incomplete.
I wanted something that:
- Starts from a topic, not a blank file
- Structures the session around whether I'm learning something or researching something
- Writes the notes for me as the conversation progresses
- Lets me see those notes live, without switching windows
- Saves everything locally so I own it
That's Rune.
How It Works — A Walkthrough
When you launch Rune, the first thing it asks is for a topic. Something like Go concurrency or system design or CQRS pattern.
From there, Rune classifies the session — it figures out whether this looks like a skill you're trying to learn or a research topic you're investigating. Based on that, it asks a few guided setup questions before the main session starts. This sounds small, but it matters: it forces you to be deliberate about what you actually want to get out of the session.
Then the main TUI opens.
The interface is a dual-panel tabbed layout built with Bubbletea. The left panel is your chat. The right panel — accessible by pressing Tab — shows a live preview of the markdown notes being generated, or a file explorer of your notes directory.
As you chat, Rune writes structured markdown files directly to disk. The preview panel watches the filesystem and re-renders in real time. You can literally watch your notes take shape sentence by sentence.
When you're done for the day, you close it. When you come back tomorrow, you reopen the same topic and Rune loads the previous session history. No setup, no re-explaining context.
Technical Decisions Worth Talking About
Go + Bubbletea
Go was the obvious choice for a CLI tool — fast startup, single binary, solid concurrency primitives. Bubbletea is the framework I used for the TUI. It follows an Elm-like architecture (Model → Update → View) which made the dual-panel layout and tab switching surprisingly clean to implement.
Local-First with Ollama
By default, Rune talks to a locally running Ollama instance (http://localhost:11434). No API key, no data leaving your machine. If you want cloud models, you can configure fallbacks via environment variables or the in-app settings screen (Ctrl+T).
OLLAMA_URL=http://your-remote-instance:11434
OLLAMA_MODEL=llama3
OLLAMA_CLOUD_MODEL=claude-3-5-sonnet
OLLAMA_API_KEY=your-key-here
Notes Storage
Everything Rune generates — markdown files, session state, config, logs — lives in a rune/ folder in your home directory. Plain text, no proprietary formats, no database. You can open these files in any editor, commit them to git, or sync them with whatever tool you already use.
File Attachments
You can attach PDFs, CSVs, and text files directly in the TUI composer as context for the session. Useful when you're researching something and want the model to work from an actual document rather than its training data.
Getting Started
You'll need Go and Ollama installed locally.
git clone https://github.com/bogusdeck/Rune
cd Rune
go build -o rune .
./rune
Then just start Rune, enter a topic, and go.
What's Next
Rune is still early. A few things on the list:
- Homebrew tap for easier installation
- Better topic classification with more session types
- Export sessions to PDF or HTML
- Plugin support for custom note templates
If you're someone who lives in the terminal and takes notes in markdown, I'd genuinely love for you to try it and tell me what's broken or annoying.
Repo: github.com/bogusdeck/Rune
Site: runecli.vercel.app
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