OpenMLE CLI

The OpenMLE CLI is an open source AI Engineer Agent that runs in your terminal, built on top of LangChain's DeepAgents and DeepAgents_cli.

Key Features:

• Built-in Skills: Comes with comprehensive set of built-in AI(problem-framing, data-engineering, ML, DL, Agents, evaluation, MLOps, Safety governance) skills
• Cross Platform: Runs Across OS (Linux, Mac, Windows)
• Built-in Tools: File operations (read, write, edit, glob, grep), shell commands, web search, and subagent delegation
• Customizable Skills: Add domain-specific capabilities through a progressive disclosure skill system
• Persistent Memory: Agent remembers your preferences, coding style, and project context across sessions
• Project-Aware: Automatically detects project roots and loads project-specific configurations

🚀 Quickstart

open-mle is a Python package that can be installed via pip or uv.

Install via pip:

pip install open-mle   # It is recommended to install inside a virtual environment

Or using uv (recommended):

# Create a virtual environment
uv venv

# Install the package
uv pip install open-mle

Run the agent in your terminal:

open-mle

Get help:

open-mle help

Common options:

# Use a specific agent configuration
open-mle --agent mybot

# Auto-approve tool usage (skip human-in-the-loop prompts)
open-mle --auto-approve

# Execute code in a remote sandbox
open-mle --sandbox modal        # or runloop, daytona
open-mle --sandbox-id dbx_123   # reuse existing sandbox

Type naturally as you would in a chat interface. The agent will use its built-in tools, skills, and memory to help you with tasks.

Built-in Tools

The agent comes with the following built-in tools (always available without configuration):

Agent Configuration

Each agent has its own configuration directory at ~/.openmle/<agent_name>/, with default agent.

# List all configured agents
open-mle list

# Create a new agent
open-mle create <agent_name>

Environment Variables

API KEYS & MODELS

Set these in your .env file or export them

GOOGLE_API_KEY = 'your-api-key'
OPENAI_API_KEY = 'your-api-key'
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = 'your-api-key'
TAVILY_API_KEY = 'your-api-key'

If you want to use a specific model (e.g., gpt-5-mini) set OPENAI_API_KEY along with OPENAI_MODEL name

As a Add-on you can also use your AZURE DEPLOYMENT models set:

AZURE_END_POINT='your-azure-endpoint'   # Example: https://server-dev.azure.com
AZURE_API_KEY='your-azure-api-key'      # Example: AVrp5.....
AZURE_VERSION="your-version"            # Example: 2025-12-01-preview
AZURE_DEPLOYMENT="your-model-name"      # Example: gpt-4.1-mini

LangSmith Tracing

The CLI supports separate LangSmith project configuration for agent tracing vs user code tracing:

Agent Tracing - Traces openMLE operations (tool calls, agent decisions):

export DEEPAGENTS_LANGSMITH_PROJECT="my-agent-project"

User Code Tracing - Traces code executed via shell commands:

export LANGSMITH_PROJECT="my-user-code-project"

Complete Setup Example:

# Enable LangSmith tracing
export LANGCHAIN_TRACING_V2=true
export LANGCHAIN_API_KEY="your-api-key"

# Configure separate projects
export DEEPAGENTS_LANGSMITH_PROJECT="agent-traces"
export LANGSMITH_PROJECT="user-code-traces"

# Run open-mle
open-mle

When both are configured, the CLI displays:

✓ LangSmith tracing enabled: OpenMLE → 'agent-traces'
  User code (shell) → 'user-code-traces'

Why separate projects?

• Keep agent operations separate from your application code traces
• Easier debugging by isolating agent vs user code behavior
• Different retention policies or access controls per project

Backwards Compatibility: If DEEPAGENTS_LANGSMITH_PROJECT is not set, both agent and user code trace to the same project specified by LANGSMITH_PROJECT.

Customization

NOTE: Built-in skills can NOT be overwriteen.

There are two primary ways to customize any agent: memory and skills.

Each agent has its own global configuration directory at ~/.openmle/<agent_name>/:

~/.openmle/<agent_name>/
  ├── agent.md              # Auto-loaded global personality/style
  └── skills/               # Auto-loaded agent-specific skills
      ├── web-research/
      │   └── SKILL.md
      └── langgraph-docs/
          └── SKILL.md

Projects can extend the global configuration with project-specific instructions and skills:

my-project/
  ├── .git/
  └── .openmle/
      ├── agent.md          # Project-specific instructions
      └── skills/           # Project-specific skills
          └── custom-tool/
              └── SKILL.md

The CLI automatically detects project roots (via .git) and loads:

• Project-specific agent.md from [project-root]/.openmle/agent.md
• Project-specific skills from [project-root]/.openmle/skills/

Both global and project configurations are loaded together, allowing you to:

• Keep general coding style/preferences in global agent.md
• Add project-specific context, conventions, or guidelines in project agent.md
• Share project-specific skills with your team (committed to version control)
• Override global skills with project-specific versions (when skill names match)

NOTE: Both global and project skills cannot have same names as built-in skills.

agent.md files

agent.md files provide persistent memory that is always loaded at session start. Both global and project-level agent.md files are loaded together and injected into the system prompt.

Global agent.md (~/.openmle/agent/agent.md)

• Your personality, style, and universal coding preferences
• General tone and communication style
• Universal coding preferences (formatting, type hints, etc.)
• Tool usage patterns that apply everywhere
• Workflows and methodologies that don't change per-project

Project agent.md (.openmle/agent.md in project root)

• Project-specific context and conventions
• Project architecture and design patterns
• Coding conventions specific to this codebase
• Testing strategies and deployment processes
• Team guidelines and project structure

How it works (AgentMemoryMiddleware):

• Loads both files at startup and injects into system prompt as <user_memory> and <project_memory>
• Appends memory management instructions on when/how to update memory files

When the agent updates memory:

• IMMEDIATELY when you describe how it should behave
• IMMEDIATELY when you give feedback on its work
• When you explicitly ask it to remember something
• When patterns or preferences emerge from your interactions

The agent uses edit_file to update memories when learning preferences or receiving feedback.

Project memory files

Beyond agent.md, you can create additional memory files in .openmle/ for structured project knowledge. These work similarly to Anthropic's Memory Tool. The agent receives detailed instructions on when to read and update these files.

How it works:

1. Create markdown files in [project-root]/.openmle/ (e.g., api-design.md, architecture.md, deployment.md)
2. The agent checks these files when relevant to a task (not auto-loaded into every prompt)
3. The agent uses write_file or edit_file to create/update memory files when learning project patterns

Example workflow:

# Agent discovers deployment pattern and saves it
.openmle/
├── agent.md           # Always loaded (personality + conventions)
├── architecture.md    # Loaded on-demand (system design)
└── deployment.md      # Loaded on-demand (deploy procedures)

When the agent reads memory files:

• At the start of new sessions (checks what files exist)
• Before answering questions about project-specific topics
• When you reference past work or patterns
• When performing tasks that match saved knowledge domains

Benefits:

• Persistent learning: Agent remembers project patterns across sessions
• Team collaboration: Share project knowledge through version control
• Contextual retrieval: Load only relevant memory when needed (reduces token usage)
• Structured knowledge: Organize information by domain (APIs, architecture, deployment, etc.)

Skills

Skills are reusable agent capabilities that provide specialized workflows and domain knowledge. Example skills are provided in the examples/skills/ directory:

• web-research - Structured web research workflow with planning, parallel delegation, and synthesis
• langgraph-docs - LangGraph documentation lookup and guidance

To use an example skill globally with the default agent, just copy them to the agent's skills global or project-level skills directory:

mkdir -p ~/.openmle/agent/skills
cp -r examples/skills/web-research ~/.openmle/agent/skills/

To manage skills:

# List all skills (built-in + user + project)
open-mle skills list

# Create a new global(user) skill from template
open-mle skills create my-skill

# Create a new project skill (requires .git to be present)
open-mle skills create my-tool --project

# List only project skills
open-mle skills list --project

# View detailed information about a skill
open-mle skills info web-research

# View info for a project skill only
open-mle skills info my-tool --project

NOTE

If you try to run:

open-mle skills create web-research

It will error out because web-research is a built-in skill and built-in skills cannot be overwriteen

To use skills (e.g., the problem-framing), just type a request relevant to a skill and the skill will be used automatically.

$ open-mle 
$ "Analyze the data and frame a ML Problem" 

Skills follow Anthropic's progressive disclosure pattern - the agent knows skills exist but only reads full instructions when needed.

1. At startup - SkillsMiddleware scans ~/.openmle/agent/skills/ and .openmle/skills/ directories
2. Parse metadata - Extracts YAML frontmatter (name + description) from each SKILL.md file
3. Inject into prompt - Adds skill list with descriptions to system prompt: "Available Skills: web-research - Use for web research tasks..."
4. Progressive loading - Agent reads full SKILL.md content with read_file only when a task matches the skill's description
5. Execute workflow - Agent follows the step-by-step instructions in the skill file

Development

Running During Development

# From libs/deepagents-cli directory
uv run deepagents

# Or install in editable mode
uv pip install -e .
deepagents

Modifying the CLI

• UI changes → Edit ui.py or input.py
• Add new tools → Edit tools.py
• Change execution flow → Edit execution.py
• Add commands → Edit commands.py
• Agent configuration → Edit agent.py
• Skills system → Edit skills/ modules
• Constants/colors → Edit config.py