syncai

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**SyncAI** is a lightweight and cross-platform utility that keeps AI-assistant guidelines, rules and ignored files in sync across multiple
agents:

* Cursor
* GitHub Copilot
* JetBrains Junie
* Cline
* Claude Code
* OpenAI Codex

It watches the files you specify in a JSON configuration and propagates every change to the corresponding locations for
the other agents.


## Supported sync types

SyncAI supports three kinds of synced items in agent configurations:

- **context** — a single file with general AI guidelines or assistant context (for example `AGENTS.md` or `CLAUDE.md`). Configure with `context.path`. The file is copied verbatim to the target location.

- **rules** — a pattern that matches multiple rule files (for example Cursor rules or Copilot instructions). Configure with `rules.pattern`. If the pattern contains a `*` wildcard, the wildcard is replaced with the source file's base name when copying.

- **ignore** — a single file with instructions telling the assistant what to ignore (for example `.copilotignore`). Configure with `ignore.path`. The file is copied verbatim.

These sections can be used together for each agent to keep context, many rule files, and ignore files in sync across different assistants.

## Quick start

1. Download a suitable binary from the [GitHub Releases](https://github.com/flowmitry/syncai/releases).
2. Copy [syncai.json](syncai.json) to your project and adjust the configuration for your agents.
3. Launch the binary in the project dir `./syncai`.

## Configuration

### Launching with arguments

1. Use `./syncai -config {path_to_syncai.json}` to start SyncAI with your custom configuration file.
2. Use `./syncai -workdir {path_to_working_directory}` to specify a different working directory.
3. Use `./syncai -no-watch` to sync your files only once, without watching for changes  (useful for CI).
4. Use `./syncai -self-update` to update SyncAI to the latest version.

### Configuration File

The default configuration is a simple JSON map (for more details check [syncai.json](syncai.json)):

```json
{
  "config": {
    // sync interval in seconds
    "interval": 5,
    // working directory (optional, default is current directory)
    "workdir": ""
  },
  "agents": [
    {
      // agent name
      "name": "<AGENT_NAME>",
      // optional "rules" section
      // GitHub Copilot calls it "instructions", Cursor and Cline "rules"
      "rules": {
        "pattern": ".<AGENT>/rules/*.md"
      },
      // optional "context" section
      "context": {
        "path": "/path/to/your/guidelines.md"
      },
      // optional "ignore" section
      "ignore": {
        "path": "/path/to/your/ignorefile"
      }
    }
  ]
}
```

## How it works

1. SyncAI loads the configuration file and builds a watch-list of directories and files derived from all sections.
2. It periodically scans those files for new or updated modification times.
3. When a rule file changes, its contents are copied to every other agent’s rule directory.

The copying logic is intentionally simple and conservative:

* The filename is preserved exactly, unless the target pattern contains a `*` wildcard—in that case, the wildcard is
  replaced with the source file’s base name.
* Destination directories are created as needed.


## How to build

To build SyncAI manually, follow the next steps:

```bash
cd syncai

make build
```