For low nuclearity clusters, bonding is often described as if it is localized. For this purpose, the 18-electron rule is used. Thus, 34 electrons in an organometallic complex predicts a dimetallic complex with a metal-metal bond. For higher nuclearity clusters, more elaborate rules are invoked including Jemmis mno rules and polyhedral skeletal electron pair theory.
Although clusters are often written with discrete M-M bonds, the nature of this bonding is unclear, especially when there are bridging ligands.