ipyai 0.0.1

Minimal IPython backtick-to-AI extension

ipyai

ipyai is an IPython extension that turns any input starting with ` into an AI prompt.

It is aimed at terminal IPython, not notebook frontends. Prompts stream through lisette, final output is rendered with rich, and prompt history is stored alongside normal IPython history in the same SQLite database.

Install

pip install ipyai

Load

%load_ext ipyai

If you change the package in a running shell:

%reload_ext ipyai

How To Auto-Load ipyai

ipyai is designed for terminal IPython. To auto-load it, add this to an ipython_config.py file used by terminal ipython:

c.TerminalIPythonApp.extensions = ["ipyai"]

Good places for that file include:

• env-local: {sys.prefix}/etc/ipython/ipython_config.py
• user-local: ~/.ipython/profile_default/ipython_config.py
• system-wide IPython config directories

In a virtualenv, the env-local path is usually:

• .venv/etc/ipython/ipython_config.py

To see which config paths your current ipython is searching, run:

ipython --debug -c 'exit()' 2>&1 | grep Searching

Usage

Only the leading backtick is special. There is no closing delimiter.

Single line:

`write a haiku about sqlite

Multiline paste:

`summarize this module:
focus on state management
and persistence behavior

Backslash-Enter continuation in the terminal:

`draft a migration plan \
with risks and rollback steps

ipyai also provides a line and cell magic named %ipyai / %%ipyai.

%ipyai commands

%ipyai
%ipyai model claude-sonnet-4-6
%ipyai think m
%ipyai search h
%ipyai code_theme monokai
%ipyai reset

Behavior:

• %ipyai prints the active model, think level, search level, code theme, config path, and system prompt path
• %ipyai model ..., %ipyai think ..., %ipyai search ..., %ipyai code_theme ... change the current session only
• %ipyai reset deletes AI prompt history for the current IPython session and resets the code-context baseline

Tools

To expose a function from the active IPython namespace as a tool for the current conversation, reference it as &\name`` in the prompt:

def weather(city): return f"Sunny in {city}"

`use &`weather` to answer the question about Brisbane

Output Rendering

Responses are streamed directly to the terminal during generation. After streaming completes:

• the stored response remains the original full lisette output
• the visible terminal output is re-rendered with rich.Markdown
• tool call detail blocks are compacted to a short single-line form such as 🔧 f(x=1) => 2

Configuration

On first load, ipyai creates two files under the XDG config directory:

• ~/.config/ipyai/config.json
• ~/.config/ipyai/sysp.txt

config.json currently supports:

{
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  "think": "l",
  "search": "l",
  "code_theme": "monokai"
}

Notes:

• model defaults from IPYAI_MODEL if that environment variable is set when the config file is first created
• think and search must be one of l, m, or h
• code_theme is passed to Rich for fenced and inline code styling

sysp.txt is used as the system prompt passed to lisette.Chat.

Development

See DEV.md for project layout, architecture, persistence details, and development workflow.