AI Directives

Runnit has one assistant, Ru. AI Directives are the playbooks that steer how Ru approaches each kind of work: markdown files that describe the approach, the deliverables, and the rules to follow. Before Ru starts a matching piece of work, it reads the matching directive and follows it.

Directives replace the earlier catalogue of separate AI agents. Instead of configuring an agent, you edit a file, and the change applies to everyone who asks Ru for that kind of work.

Where directives live

Directives are ordinary markdown files in two kinds of AI Directives asset collections:

• Organisation-wide: the AI Directives collection in the AI Library group of Admin > Organisation Library (administrators only). These files apply to every client and every conversation.
• Per client: the AI Directives tab on the client page. A client file with the same name as an organisation-wide file replaces it for that client’s work. Files that only exist for the client add client-specific behaviours on top.

A new client starts with an empty AI Directives collection, so the organisation-wide files apply until you add an override.

The default directives

Every organisation starts with an editable default set:

File	What it steers
resource_planning.md	How budget-aware resource plans are generated from approved briefs.
project_creation.md	How an approved brief becomes a proposed draft project.
brief_builder_questions.md	Which clarifying questions Brief Builder asks while a brief is drafted.
brief_builder_refinement.md	How Brief Builder refines a working draft into a professional brief.
copywriting.md	How marketing and communication copy is written.
strategy.md	How research-backed brand strategy deliverables are produced.
synthetic_audience_testing.md	How creative material is tested against a synthetic persona panel.
brand_asset_generation.md	How a client’s foundational brand asset set is researched and generated.
brand_guidelines_intake.md	How Ru interviews you, gathers your documents and links, and generates the full brand guidelines set. See Assets.
today_widget.md	The tone and emphasis of each person’s Runnit Today briefing on the dashboard.

Product updates only refresh a default file while you have not edited it. Once you change a file, your version is kept.

Note

If your organisation used the earlier per-client AI Steering collection, its files were carried over automatically. An edited steering file became that client’s project_creation.md override; an unedited one was removed so the client now follows the organisation-wide default.

Add your own directive

Adding a clearly named markdown file to an AI Directives collection teaches Ru a new kind of work with no other configuration. For example, add social_media_calendar.md describing how your organisation builds social media calendars, and Ru reads it before doing that kind of work. Give the file a short description when you add it, so Ru knows when the directive applies.

Ru matches directives on meaning, not exact words: asking it to “put together a social calendar for Acme” is enough to trigger social_media_calendar.md.

Edit a directive

Changing directive files requires the Manage AI agents permission, because they steer what the assistant does for everyone in the organisation. Users without it can read directives but not change them.

You can edit a directive in two ways:

• Open the AI Directives collection and edit the file like any other markdown asset.
• Ask Ru. For example, “update the copywriting directive so every deliverable ends with a call to action”, or “add a client override of resource_planning for Acme”. Ru reads the current file first, confirms the change with you before overwriting, and reports what changed.

Directives guide how Ru works, but they never bypass permissions, client staffing lists, capacity, or confirmation rules.

Note

Directive files do not appear in semantic asset search results. Open the AI Directives collection to browse them.

See who changed what

Every directive change made through Ru is attributed to the person who asked for it, and every change is versioned. Ask Ru “who last changed resource_planning.md?” for a history report showing each version, who made it, when, and whether the change was made through chat or manually.

What replaced the AI agent catalogue

• The separate agent catalogue page and the launchable copywriter, strategist, and synthetic audience agents were removed. Ask Ru for that work instead; it follows the copywriting.md, strategy.md, and synthetic_audience_testing.md directives.
• The custom agent builder was removed. Add a directive file instead.
• The Automation Queue, chat pages, and historical agent job results remain viewable.
• The client page’s Generate Brand Assets button was replaced by Generate Brand Guidelines, shown on the empty Brand Guidelines collection. It opens a Ru chat that follows the brand_guidelines_intake.md directive: Ru interviews you, gathers your documents and links, and generates the guideline files into the collection. See Assets.

Continue with the Chat Assistant to see how Ru uses directives and page context while you work.