Coauthor AI Agent

Coauthor is a versatile AI agent designed to seamlessly integrate into any project without being restricted to a particular tool or IDE. It functions as a co-author, operating in the background to monitor files and respond to instructions for collaboratively producing documentation, code, configuration, and more.

The agent is powered by a simple task engine that allows you to define workflows—collections of tasks that are executed in sequence when certain conditions, such as file or directory changes, are met. This task engine is enhanced by the Jinja templating engine, providing extensive control over system and user prompts.

Installing

:start-after:

To install Coauthor run the following command:

pip install coauthor

Configuration .coauthor.yml

To do anything meaningful with coauthor you have to create a configuration file .coauthor.yml. For example in the root of a folder that contains Obsidian markdown files. Refer to the documentation website for more information.

Command line usage

Create a file .coauthor.yml in the root of your project, for example in a Obsidian project where all my Obsidian vaults are in directory vaults:

Start Coauthor run the following commands:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=<you api key>
export OPENAI_API_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
coauthor --watch

To see command line options, run coauthor --help.

Model Override

You can override the default AI model using the COAUTHOR_MODEL environment variable:

# Use a different model
export COAUTHOR_MODEL="openai/gpt-4"
coauthor --watch

# Or use with a local AI service
export COAUTHOR_MODEL="llama2:latest"
coauthor --watch

This is particularly useful when using profiles that don't specify a model or when testing with different AI services.

Using with Jira

To enable Jira integration, configure authentication:

# Using Personal Access Token (recommended)
export COAUTHOR_JIRA_PAT=your_personal_access_token
export COAUTHOR_JIRA_URL=https://your-jira-instance.com

# Or using username/password (legacy)
export COAUTHOR_JIRA_USERNAME=your_username
export COAUTHOR_JIRA_PASSWORD=your_password
export COAUTHOR_JIRA_URL=https://your-jira-instance.com

See Jira Configuration for detailed setup instructions.

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. For details, visit the repository's Contributor Page.