DrSai

A framework for developing AI Agent and Multi-Agent Systems, based on AutoGen 0.5.7. Developed by Dr. Sai's team at IHEP, CAS.

Quick Start (End Users)

# Prerequisites: Python ≥ 3.11. (Node.js is auto-downloaded on first run.)

pip install drsai
drsai             # Launches the interactive TUI

That's it. The wheel ships with a pre-built TUI bundle, and on first launch DrSai auto-downloads a portable Node.js runtime (~25 MB, one-time, cached in ~/.drsai/cache/node/). Subsequent launches are instant.

If you'd rather use a system Node, install Node.js ≥ 20 from https://nodejs.org/ and DrSai will use it automatically.

Architecture

DrSai ships two processes that talk over JSON-RPC:

┌─────────────────────────────────┐         ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│  ui-tui (TypeScript + Ink)      │ ◀────▶  │  tui_gateway (Python)           │
│  React-based terminal UI        │  stdio  │  Agent orchestrator + RPC       │
└─────────────────────────────────┘         └─────────────────────────────────┘
                                                          │
                                                          ▼
                                            DrSaiCLIAssistant (autogen agent)

• apps/ui-tui/ — TypeScript/React/Ink frontend (compiled to single 5 MB ESM bundle)
• cores/python/packages/drsai/ — Python backend: agent, gateway, slash commands, session store

Requirements

Building & Publishing

One-shot release build

From the repo root:

./scripts/build-wheel.sh

This script does three things:

1. pnpm install && pnpm build in apps/ui-tui/ → produces ui-tui/dist/entry.mjs (esbuild bundle, ~5 MB)
2. python -m build --wheel in cores/python/packages/drsai/ → produces dist/drsai-X.Y.Z-py3-none-any.whl (~1.6 MB compressed)
3. Verifies the bundle is correctly embedded inside the wheel at drsai/ui_tui/dist/entry.mjs

Output:

cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-1.2.8-py3-none-any.whl  (1.6 MB)

Manual step-by-step

Useful when debugging a single stage:

# 1. Build the TUI bundle
cd apps/ui-tui
pnpm install          # first time only
pnpm build            # → dist/entry.mjs
cd -

# 2. Build the Python wheel
cd cores/python/packages/drsai
rm -rf dist build     # clean previous artifacts
python -m build --wheel
cd -

# 3. Verify wheel contents
python -m zipfile -l cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-*.whl | grep -E "ui_tui|entry\.mjs"
# Expected:
#   drsai/ui_tui/package.json
#   drsai/ui_tui/dist/entry.mjs

Local install test (recommended before publishing)

# Test the wheel in a fresh venv
python -m venv /tmp/drsai-test
/tmp/drsai-test/bin/pip install cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-1.2.8-py3-none-any.whl
/tmp/drsai-test/bin/drsai chat   # should launch the TUI

# Cleanup
rm -rf /tmp/drsai-test

Upload to PyPI

# First time: install twine
pip install twine

# Test on TestPyPI first (recommended)
python -m twine upload --repository testpypi cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-*.whl

# Then production PyPI
python -m twine upload cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-*.whl

Credentials are read from ~/.pypirc or env vars TWINE_USERNAME / TWINE_PASSWORD.

Example ~/.pypirc:

[distutils]
index-servers =
    pypi
    testpypi

[pypi]
username = __token__
password = pypi-AgEIcHlwaS5vcmcC...   # your API token

[testpypi]
repository = https://test.pypi.org/legacy/
username = __token__
password = pypi-...                     # TestPyPI token

Bumping the version

Edit a single file:

# cores/python/packages/drsai/src/drsai/version.py
__version__ = "1.2.9"  # ← bump here

pyproject.toml reads this dynamically via [tool.hatch.version]. No other file needs to change.

Full release checklist

# 1. Bump version
$EDITOR cores/python/packages/drsai/src/drsai/version.py

# 2. Build
./scripts/build-wheel.sh

# 3. Test in fresh venv
python -m venv /tmp/drsai-test
/tmp/drsai-test/bin/pip install cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-1.2.9-py3-none-any.whl
/tmp/drsai-test/bin/drsai version           # confirm version
/tmp/drsai-test/bin/drsai chat              # confirm TUI works
rm -rf /tmp/drsai-test

# 4. Test full test suite still passes
python -m pytest cores/python/packages/drsai/tests/tui_gateway/ -q
cd apps/ui-tui && ./scripts/e2e-test.sh && cd -

# 5. Tag git release
git add -A
git commit -m "release: v1.2.9"
git tag v1.2.9
git push && git push --tags

# 6. Publish to TestPyPI
python -m twine upload --repository testpypi cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-1.2.9-py3-none-any.whl

# 7. Verify install from TestPyPI
pip install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ --extra-index-url https://pypi.org/simple drsai==1.2.9

# 8. Publish to PyPI
python -m twine upload cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-1.2.9-py3-none-any.whl

Development Setup

Editable install (Python only)

cd cores/python/packages/drsai
pip install -e .

Run TUI from source (no bundle build)

cd apps/ui-tui
pnpm install
pnpm dev          # runs tsx src/entry.tsx with hot reload

This spawns the Python gateway as a subprocess; the gateway picks up the drsai install (editable or otherwise).

Run gateway standalone (for WebSocket attach)

DRSAI_TUI_ENABLE_WS=1 DRSAI_TUI_WS_PORT=8765 python -m drsai.backend.tui_gateway

# Then in another terminal:
drsai chat --attach ws://127.0.0.1:8765/attach

Testing

Python (gateway handlers)

cd /home/xiongdb/drsai
python -m pytest cores/python/packages/drsai/tests/tui_gateway/ -v
# Expected: 7 passed in ~21s

TypeScript (type check)

cd apps/ui-tui
pnpm type-check

End-to-end (UI + gateway + RPC)

cd apps/ui-tui
./scripts/e2e-test.sh
# Expected: 4 checks pass

Manual TUI smoke

cd apps/ui-tui && pnpm dev    # or: drsai chat after pip install
# In the TUI:
/help                    # 42 slash commands listed
/model                   # pops up model picker
/list                    # pops up session picker
/dangerous on            # toggle, watch StatusBar badge update

Project Layout

drsai/
├── apps/ui-tui/                                  # TypeScript/Ink frontend
│   ├── src/                                 # source (entry.tsx, app.tsx, components/, hooks/)
│   ├── scripts/build.mjs                    # esbuild bundler
│   ├── dist/entry.mjs                       # built bundle (gitignored, regenerated)
│   └── package.json
│
├── cores/python/packages/drsai/                   # Python package
│   ├── src/drsai/
│   │   ├── backend/
│   │   │   ├── run_cli.py                   # `drsai` CLI entry (thin launcher)
│   │   │   ├── tui_gateway/                 # JSON-RPC gateway
│   │   │   │   ├── entry.py                 # `drsai-gateway` entry point
│   │   │   │   ├── server.py                # RPC dispatcher
│   │   │   │   ├── handlers/                # session.*, prompt.*, slash.*, tools.*
│   │   │   │   └── adapter/                 # agent_runner, event_translator, callbacks
│   │   │   ├── gateway.py                   # Legacy SSE gateway (Electron desktop only)
│   │   │   ├── _deprecated/                 # Old prompt_toolkit REPL (kept for reference)
│   │   │   └── cli/                         # Shared utilities (config, history, commands)
│   │   ├── modules/agents/                  # DrSaiCLIAssistant, sub-agents
│   │   └── version.py                       # Single source of version
│   ├── tests/tui_gateway/                   # pytest suite
│   ├── docs/                                # design docs, migration guide
│   ├── pyproject.toml                       # build config
│   └── README.md                            # ← you are here
│
├── scripts/build-wheel.sh                   # One-shot release builder
└── apps/desktop/                                 # Electron client (separate project)

CLI Reference

drsai                       # Launch TUI (default)
drsai chat                  # Same as above
drsai chat --attach <ws>    # Connect to existing gateway via WebSocket
drsai tui-gateway           # Run gateway as standalone process
drsai gateway --port 8642   # Legacy SSE gateway (for Electron desktop)
drsai config --show         # View/edit config
drsai sessions              # List saved sessions
drsai version               # Print version

Console scripts installed by pip:

Environment Variables

Troubleshooting

pip install succeeded but drsai chat errors out on Node download

DrSai auto-downloads a portable Node.js runtime (~25 MB) on first launch from https://nodejs.org/dist. If that fails (offline, behind a proxy, blocked region):

Option 1 — use a closer mirror

export DRSAI_NODE_MIRROR=https://npmmirror.com/mirrors/node   # China mirror
drsai

Option 2 — install Node.js system-wide and let DrSai pick it up

# macOS:    brew install node
# Ubuntu:   apt install nodejs
# Windows:  https://nodejs.org/ (LTS installer)
node --version    # must succeed
drsai

Option 3 — point at an existing node binary

export DRSAI_NODE=/full/path/to/node
drsai

Option 4 — air-gapped install Pre-download a Node tarball matching your platform from https://nodejs.org/dist/v20.18.0/, extract under ~/.drsai/cache/node/v20.18.0/<platform>/ (so e.g. ~/.drsai/cache/node/v20.18.0/linux-x64/bin/node exists), then:

export DRSAI_NODE_NO_DOWNLOAD=1
drsai

TUI starts but gateway crashes

Check the crash log:

tail -50 ~/.drsai/logs/tui_gateway_crash.log

Bundle missing from wheel after build

The force-include paths in pyproject.toml are relative to the wheel build root, which is cores/python/packages/drsai/. So ../../../../apps/ui-tui/dist/entry.mjs walks up to the repo root. If you move the repo layout, update those paths.

Verify with:

python -m zipfile -l cores/python/packages/drsai/dist/drsai-*.whl | grep ui_tui

Expected output:

drsai/ui_tui/package.json
drsai/ui_tui/dist/entry.mjs

python -m build complains about hatchling

Install / upgrade the build toolchain:

pip install --upgrade build hatchling twine

Tests fail with "session not found"

The test suite resolves sessions for the current user; sessions are stored in ~/.drsai/. If you've never run drsai before, session.create will be exercised first.

drsai gateway prints a deprecation warning

That's intentional. The old SSE gateway.py is preserved only for the Electron desktop client. The new TUI uses drsai-gateway (JSON-RPC).

Documentation

• docs/tui-migration-guide.md — How to migrate from the legacy CLI
• docs/hermes-agent-tui-analysis.md — Original design analysis

License

MIT — see top-level LICENSE in the repo root.

Authors

Dr. Sai's team — Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Contact: xiongdb@ihep.ac.cn / hepai@ihep.ac.cn