janito - a development agent with function calling, MCP and skills

Console vs Web

📖 Full documentation available at https://joaompinto.github.io/janito/

⚠️ Disclaimer: The code on this repo has been developed mostly using AI.

Features

🔧 Function Calling - Built-in tools for file operations, web search, and more
🔌 Plugins - Gmail, code search, OneDrive, and more via the plugin system
🔌 MCP Support - Connect to Model Context Protocol servers
🧩 Skills - Install and use task-specific skills from GitHub
🌐 Web UI (Alpha) - Chat through a browser instead of the terminal with --web
↪️ Session Resume - Exit a terminal chat and reopen it with janito -C (full conversation restored)
📊 Real-time Progress - Watch tool execution progress as it happens
🚀 Easy Setup - Interactive configuration with --config or quick setup with --set flags
🔗 OpenAI-Compatible & Native APIs - Works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenAI, LM Studio, Ollama, custom) and native SDKs (Anthropic, DashScope)

NOTE: Janito should be used on development systems on which data loss is tolerable and there are no critical secrets

Quick Start

# Install
pip install janito

# Or, with uv (recommended)
uv tool install janito

# Configure interactively
janito --config

# Or set options directly (two steps: config, then API key)
janito --set provider=openai --set model=gpt-5.6-luna
janito --set-api-key="sk-your-key" --provider openai

# Start chatting
janito "Hello!"

Installation

From PyPI

pip install janito

Or, with uv:

uv tool install janito

For development setup, see README_DEV.md.

Configuration

Interactive Setup

janito --config

You'll be prompted for:

Provider - openai or custom
API Key - Masked for security
Model - e.g., gpt-5.6-luna
Max Output Tokens - Maximum output tokens (default: 65536)
Max Input Tokens - Maximum input tokens / context window (default: 128000)

Quick Configuration with `--set`

Set options directly from the command line:

# Single key-value
janito --set model=gpt-5.6-luna

You can also use --get, --unset, and --set-secret with multiple values.

View Configuration

janito --show-config

Costs per provider

Provider	Last Model	Price
Alibaba	qwen3.8-flash	Pay as you go
Moonshot	kimi-k3	$15/month (Moderato)
z.ai	glm-5.3-flash	$12.6/month (Lite)
openai	gpt-5.6	Pay as you go

For custom endpoints (base-url), see README_custom.md.

Usage

Single Prompt

janito "What is the capital of France?"

Pipe Input

echo "Tell me a joke" | janito

Interactive Chat

janito

Commands in chat mode:

/exit - End the session
clear - Clear conversation and start a new one
Ctrl+D / Ctrl+Z then Enter - Exit (EOF)
/help - List all commands (with descriptions) and shortcuts

Web UI (Alpha)

⚠️ Alpha — The --web mode is currently in alpha. It works, but the interface, CLI flags, and API may change between releases.

Janito can serve a browser-based chat interface instead of the terminal. This requires optional dependencies that are not part of the core install:

# Install with the web extra
pip install janito[web]
# or
uv tool install janito[web]

Then start the server (opens your browser automatically):

janito --web

# All normal Janito flags still apply, plus web-specific ones:
janito --web -r -w --web-port 9090    # privileges + web, custom port
janito --web --no-web-open                      # don't auto-open the browser

The server binds to 127.0.0.1 by default (localhost only). For full details (features, security, API endpoints, architecture), see the Web UI documentation.

System Prompt Options

Control how the system prompt is handled:

# Use default system prompt (with tools enabled)
janito "What can you do?"

# Disable system prompt entirely (no tools at all)
janito -Z "Simple prompt without system context"

# Override with a custom system prompt (tools stay enabled)
janito -S "You are a concise coding assistant" "Explain recursion"

# Keep the system prompt but skip tool loading (skill tools stay enabled)
janito --no-tools "Explain recursion"

# Skip only the parallel-tasks toolset (StartTask/StopTask/WaitForTask/ListTasks)
janito --no-tasks "Refactor this file"

Flag	Description
`-Z`, `--no-system-prompt`	Skip system prompt and disable tools
`-S`, `--system-prompt`	Custom system prompt
`--no-tools`	Do not load tools (skill tools stay enabled)
`--no-tasks`	Do not load the tasks toolset (`StartTask`, `StopTask`, `WaitForTask`, `ListTasks`); all other tools stay enabled

Note: When using -Z, built-in tools (file operations, MCP) are disabled. Use the default mode or -S flag when you need tool access.

Note: --no-tools disables loading of all non-skill tools (file operations, MCP) while keeping the skill tools (load_skill, read_skill_resource) available, so the model can still load installed skills on demand.

Note: --no-tasks disables only the tasks toolset (the StartTask / StopTask / WaitForTask / ListTasks tools that spawn parallel child processes). File, system, net and skill tools stay available.

Logging

janito --log=info "Your prompt"      # Info level
janito --log=debug "Your prompt"     # Debug level
janito --log=info,debug "Your prompt" # Multiple levels

Examples

OpenAI

# Step 1: Set provider and model
janito --set provider=openai --set model=gpt-5.6-luna
# Step 2: Store API key
janito --set-api-key="sk-your-key" --provider openai

# Then run any prompt
janito "Explain quantum computing"

Alibaba (Qwen)

# Step 1: Set provider and model
janito --set provider=alibaba --set model=qwen3.8-flash
# Step 2: Store API key
janito --set-api-key="your-dashscope-api-key" --provider alibaba

# Then run any prompt
janito "Explain quantum computing"

Custom Endpoint

janito --set provider=custom --set base-url=http://localhost:8000/v1

Built-in Tools

janito includes tools for common tasks:

File Operations

# List files
python -m janito.tools.files.list_files . --recursive --pattern "*.py"

# Read file
python -m janito.tools.files.read_file README.md --max-lines 20

MCP Tools

Connect to MCP servers using the /mcp command inside the interactive shell:

# Add a stdio-based MCP server
/mcp add myserver stdio python -m mcp.server

# Add an HTTP-based MCP server
/mcp add remote http https://api.example.com/mcp

# List configured servers
/mcp list

For full MCP documentation, see README_MCP.md.

Tool Progress Reporting

Tools report progress in real-time:

🔄 Reading files...
📊 Processing: 50/100 files
✅ Completed: 100 files (2.3MB)

Progress messages go to stderr so they don't interfere with tool output.

Error Handling

Exit Code	Meaning
`0`	Success
`1`	Configuration or runtime error
`130`	User cancelled (Ctrl+C or Enter)

Dependencies

Python 3.10+
openai>=1.0.0
rich>=10.0.0
prompt-toolkit>=3.0.0
requests>=2.28.0 (for MCP support)
pathspec>=0.11.0 (for .gitignore-aware file listing)
questionary>=2.1.1 (for the interactive --config wizard)

Optional extras: janito[web] adds fastapi/uvicorn (for --web); the native API types need anthropic (--api-type Anthropic), dashscope (DashScope) or google-genai (Gemini).

License

MIT License

Metadata

Release files for janito 4.42.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for janito 4.42.0
File	Size	Uploaded
janito-4.42.0.tar.gz	1.1 MB	Sep 21, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for janito 4.42.0
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
janito-4.42.0-py3-none-any.whl 669.0 kB Sep 21, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 1.8 MB

Release files / janito-4.42.0.tar.gz

Download URL	janito-4.42.0.tar.gz
Size	1.1 MB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`eb3ec5c3bcac2595cd3e1aacf1b01b59953f48f6663935789f45eb39ce04d795`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`2872dfeaee01bb069067aeacfce4da98da3bc3d27e26d66b3a771a827420eea7`
Upload date	Sep 21, 2026
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Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14`

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Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/joaompinto/janito
Publishing commit: github.com/joaompinto/janito/tree/efea348e33f2739527e02aea39a2046b74793785

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/joaompinto/janito/blob/efea348e33f2739527e02aea39a2046b74793785/.github/workflows/release.yaml
Publishing logs: github.com/joaompinto/janito/actions/runs/35632779134/attempts/1

Artifact

Subject: janito-4.42.0.tar.gz
SHA-256 checksum: eb3ec5c3bcac2595cd3e1aacf1b01b59953f48f6663935789f45eb39ce04d795 Verifying attestations

Release files / janito-4.42.0-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	janito-4.42.0-py3-none-any.whl
Size	669.0 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`19f3d6250206219e4c89aeae5a134601a0a2fb66c8cf0fdf1c605762ca95f16b`
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Upload date	Sep 21, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14`

Provenance

Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/joaompinto/janito
Publishing commit: github.com/joaompinto/janito/tree/efea348e33f2739527e02aea39a2046b74793785

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/joaompinto/janito/blob/efea348e33f2739527e02aea39a2046b74793785/.github/workflows/release.yaml
Publishing logs: github.com/joaompinto/janito/actions/runs/35632779134/attempts/1

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Subject: janito-4.42.0-py3-none-any.whl
SHA-256 checksum: 19f3d6250206219e4c89aeae5a134601a0a2fb66c8cf0fdf1c605762ca95f16b Verifying attestations