Rinko Hub documentation
Documentation for Rinko Hub and the Nexa protocol: install the CLI, sign in, set up a Development Root, record your first version, publish it to Rinko Hub, and learn the workflow Nexa is designed for.
Two things are documented here: Nexa, a version-control protocol and the nexa command-line program, and Rinko Hub, the hosted platform
built on it. If you want to start working immediately, go to Getting started.
What Nexa is
Nexa is a distributed version-control system. It tracks the history of a project, lets several
people and tools work on it at once, and reconciles what they did. The nexa command-line program is the whole client, and every local operation works offline
with no account.
Its vocabulary is worth having up front, because two of the words differ from Git's:
- A repository is one project: its files, its history, and the objects that store them.
- A version is a complete recorded state of a project — a whole tree, not a delta against the last one. There is no staging area, so there is nothing to add to an index before recording.
- A branch holds a set of competing candidates rather than a single pointer. Selecting one does not delete the others.
- A workspace is a context inside a branch where several attempts at the same problem coexist — one workspace per problem, one version per attempt.
- A working context is one repository, at one branch and workspace, materialized as a directory of ordinary files you can edit.
- Sync is the single synchronization step. Two sides exchange what the other lacks; divergence produces another candidate rather than a rejection.
That candidate model is the substantive difference. When two people — or a person and an AI tool — attempt the same task, Git makes that a conflict to resolve before the work can be kept. Nexa keeps both attempts as candidates and lets you choose afterwards, without either one having overwritten the other.
What Rinko Hub is
Rinko Hub hosts Nexa repositories. It gives a repository an address of the form owner/repository, stores it, and serves it to the machines you authorize. Around
that it adds what hosting is for: browsing code, organizations and teams, and access control
over who may read and who may contribute.
Nexa does not depend on it. Repositories on your own disk are complete, and you can decide to publish one later or never. Using Rinko Hub means your work is reachable from your other machines and from the people you work with.
The workflow, in six commands
Everyday work with Nexa and Rinko Hub is six commands. The first two you run once per machine, the next two once per project, and the last two are the loop.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
nexa login | Authorizes this machine with Rinko Hub, in a browser. |
nexa root | Makes this directory your Development Root — the one folder your active work lives in. |
nexa init -p my-project | Makes a folder under the root a project. For a repository that already exists on Rinko
Hub, nexa get owner/repo brings it in instead. |
nexa record -p my-project -m "…" | Records the working tree as a version. |
nexa publish -p my-project | Creates the Rinko Hub repository and publishes the recorded version. The code is live when it returns. |
nexa sync -p my-project | Synchronizes every later recorded change with Rinko Hub, in both directions. |
nexa sync takes no address, no remote name and no branch. A working context already
knows which repository it is, where it is hosted, and which credential to present — so there is
nothing left for you to type, and no push-then-pull ordering to remember.
Where to start
Getting started is the ordered path from no
tooling to a published repository: install the CLI, sign in with nexa login,
declare a Development Root, and publish your first repository. Start here if you have not used
Nexa before.
Core concepts defines the model in dependency order — repositories and versions, branches and workspaces, and how the Development Root maps onto directories. Read it when you want to know why the commands behave as they do.
Workflows covers how the pieces combine in practice: the recommended multi-project setup, coming from Git, working local-first, running several contexts at once, and humans and AI tools sharing a repository.
Guides goes deep on one subject at a time: privacy and file control, working with workspaces, and collaboration.
Reference is what you return to: the CLI reference, troubleshooting, and the documentation glossary. The product-wide glossary defines the vocabulary these pages link to.
If you already use Git and want the comparison before anything else, read Nexa vs Git.