README.md

🤖 ARCA: Asset Resolution for AI Assistants

ARCA is a decentralized standard for distributing, versioning, and consuming agentic assets (rules, skills, instructions).

🧩 What is ARCA?

ARCA provides a unified way for AI assistants—including coding agents (Copilot, Cursor), web agents (Manus), and general LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini)—to discover and integrate specialized assets. By using Git-based manifests and deterministic locking, ARCA ensures that your agents always have the right version of the instructions they need.

✨ Core Features

• 🌐 Decentralized Registry: Host your assets in any Git repository or local folder.
• 🔒 Deterministic Locking: Reproducible environments with .arca-assets.lock.
• ⚡ High Performance: Zero-dependency Go CLI for fast resolution and syncing.
• 🔀 Multi-Assistant Projections: Sync one asset to multiple locations (e.g., .cursor/rules and .github/instructions).
• 🛡️ Strict Integrity: SHA-256 verification with mandatory LF-normalization for cross-platform consistency.
• 📱 Mobile Friendly: Built to run on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

🏗️ Architecture

flowchart LR
    subgraph Maintainer["🧑‍💻 Maintainer"]
        Repo["Source Repository
            arca-manifest.yaml"]
    end

    subgraph ARCA_CLI["⚙️ ARCA CLI"]
        Resolver["🔍 Resolver
            SemVer + Manifest"]
        Downloader["📥 Downloader
            Git / Local"]
        Hasher["🔐 Hasher
            SHA-256 + LF Norm"]
        Cache["💾 Cache
            ~/.arca-cache"]
        Projector["🗂️ Projector
            Symlinks / Copies"]
    end

    subgraph Consumer["👤 Consumer Project"]
        Config[".arca-assets.yaml"]
        Lockfile[".arca-assets.lock"]
        subgraph Projections["📂 AI Tool Paths"]
            Copilot[".github/instructions/"]
            Cursor[".cursor/rules/"]
        end
    end

    Config -->|"arca sync / install"| Resolver
    Resolver -->|fetches manifest| Repo
    Resolver --> Downloader
    Downloader --> Hasher
    Hasher --> Cache
    Cache --> Projector
    Projector --> Copilot
    Projector --> Cursor
    Projector -->|writes| Lockfile

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🚀 Quick Start

1. ⬇️ Install ARCA:
   • See Getting Started for details.
   • Or use arca-vscode VS Code extension for interactive asset selection.
2. 📦 Add an Asset:

   arca install https://github.com/org/assets my-asset --target .github/instructions/my-asset.md

3. 🔄 Sync:

   arca sync

📚 Documentation Index

• 🎯 Purpose & Benefits - Why we built ARCA.
• 🚀 Getting Started - How to install and use the CLI.
• 🔬 Protocol Deep-Dive - How the manifests and resolution flows work.
• 🤝 Contribution Guide - How to improve ARCA.
• 🗺️ Roadmap - Future plans for ARCA.
• 📜 Code of Conduct - Community standards.
• 📋 Changelog - Version history and release notes.

⚖️ License

ARCA is released under the MIT License.