ipyant

ipyant is a terminal IPython extension that supports Claude-backed prompt using the Agent SDK, so it supports Claude Code subscriptions as well as API keys.

It is aimed at terminal IPython, not notebook frontends.

Install

pip install -e ipyant

ipyant uses the local Claude Code / Claude Agent SDK stack, so Claude must already be installed and authenticated on the machine. It also depends on safepyrun for the live python tool.

How to Use Prompts

There are several ways to send a prompt to Claude from ipyant:

Dot prefix (.) — In normal IPython mode, start any line with . to send it as a prompt. Everything after the dot is sent to Claude. Continuation lines (without a dot) are included too, so you can write multi-line prompts:

.explain what this dataframe transform is doing

.draft a plan for this notebook:
focus on state management
and failure cases

Prompt mode — When prompt mode is on, every line you type is sent to Claude by default. To run normal Python code instead, prefix the line with ;. Shell commands (!) and magics (%) still work as usual. There are three ways to enable prompt mode:

• opt-p (Alt-p) — toggle prompt mode on/off at any time from the terminal
• -p flag — start ipyant in prompt mode: ipyant -p
• prompt_mode config — set "prompt_mode": true in config.json to always start in prompt mode

You can also toggle prompt mode during a session with %ipyant prompt.

CLI

ipyant

Flags:

ipyant -r        # resume last session
ipyant -r 43     # resume session 43
ipyant -l file   # load a saved notebook session
ipyant -p        # start in prompt mode

On exit, ipyant prints the session ID so you can resume later.

Load As Extension

%load_ext ipyant

Usage

ipyant is a normal IPython session — you can run Python code exactly as you would in plain IPython. On top of that, you can send prompts to Claude as described above. %ipyant / %%ipyant magics are also available.

Useful commands:

%ipyant
%ipyant model sonnet
%ipyant completion_model haiku
%ipyant think m
%ipyant code_theme monokai
%ipyant log_exact true
%ipyant prompt
%ipyant save mysession
%ipyant load mysession
%ipyant sessions
%ipyant reset

Context Model

For each AI prompt, ipyant sends:

• recent IPython code as <code>
• string-literal note cells as <note>
• recent outputs as <output>
• the current request as <user-request>
• referenced live variables as <variable>
• referenced shell command output as <shell>

Prompts are stored in SQLite in a dedicated claude_prompts table. Claude-native session metadata is stored in IPython's sessions.remark as JSON, including cwd, provider, and provider_session_id.

Tools

ipyant exposes exactly one custom tool:

• python: delegates to pyrun in the live IPython namespace

It also enables these built-in Claude Code tools:

• Bash
• Edit
• Read
• Skill
• WebFetch
• WebSearch
• Write

The ipyant CLI loads safepyrun before ipyant, so pyrun is available by default in normal terminal use.

Skills

Skills are Claude-native. ipyant enables the built-in Skill tool and loads normal Claude user/project skills through the Agent SDK.

Notebook Save/Load

%ipyant save <filename> writes a notebook snapshot. It stores:

• code cells
• note cells
• AI responses as markdown cells
• prompt metadata including both prompt and full_prompt

%ipyant load <filename> restores that notebook into a fresh session. On the next prompt after such a load, ipyant synthesizes a Claude transcript JSONL file once, stores the resulting Claude session ID, and then resumes natively from that point onward.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Alt-.: AI inline completion
• Alt-p: toggle prompt mode
• Alt-Up/Down: history navigation
• Alt-Shift-W: paste all Python code blocks from the last response
• Alt-Shift-1 through Alt-Shift-9: paste the Nth Python code block
• Alt-Shift-Up/Down: cycle through extracted Python blocks

Config

Config lives under XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ipyant/:

• config.json
• sysp.txt
• exact-log.jsonl

config.json supports:

{
  "model": "sonnet",
  "completion_model": "haiku",
  "think": "l",
  "code_theme": "monokai",
  "log_exact": false,
  "prompt_mode": false
}

Development

See DEV.md.