Quickstart

OpenTools provides ready-made toolsets (such as Trading) that return consistent, structured outputs across models and frameworks.

In this quickstart, you’ll build a minimal agent that connects to your Alpaca account and returns account information using OpenAI.

Get started

1. Install the SDK

Open a terminal, create a new project folder, set up a virtual environment, and install the required dependencies.

Using uv (recommended)

mkdir my_agent
cd my_agent
uv venv
uv pip install opentools-sdk openai python-dotenv

Using pip

mkdir my_agent
cd my_agent
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install opentools-sdk openai python-dotenv

Using a virtual environment ensures this demo stays isolated from your other projects.

2. Add your API keys

OpenTools reads credentials from environment variables.
This quickstart uses Alpaca for trading and OpenAI as the model provider.

OpenAI API key

If you already have an OpenAI API key, add it to your environment.

Steps:

• Go to the OpenAI dashboard (API keys section)
• Click Create new secret key
• Copy the key and store it somewhere safe

If you already export OPENAI_API_KEY globally, you can omit it from the .env file.

Alpaca API key

Steps:

• Create an Alpaca account (paper trading requires no funding)
• From the dashboard homepage, find Your API Keys
• Click Generate New Keys
• Copy:
  • Key ID
  • Secret Key

Note
Alpaca only shows the secret key once. If you lose it, you must generate a new key pair.

Create a .env file

This quickstart uses paper trading by default.
OpenTools does not store credentials or manage OAuth. All keys remain local.

Create a file named .env in the same directory as main.py:

OPENAI_API_KEY="your_openai_api_key"
ALPACA_KEY="your_alpaca_key_id"
ALPACA_SECRET="your_alpaca_secret_key"

3. Run your first tool call

You’re about to run a small tool loop:

• The LLM decides which trading tool to call
• OpenTools executes the tool
• The LLM summarises the result

This example uses paper trading and minimal output.

Create main.py

import asyncio
import os

from dotenv import load_dotenv
from openai import AsyncOpenAI

from opentools import trading
from opentools.adapters.models.openai import run_with_tools


async def main() -> None:
    load_dotenv()

    client = AsyncOpenAI(api_key=os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"])

    service = trading.alpaca(
        api_key=os.environ["ALPACA_KEY"],
        api_secret=os.environ["ALPACA_SECRET"],
        model="openai",
        paper=True,
        minimal=True,
    )

    prompt = "Show my account summary and list any open positions."

    result = await run_with_tools(
        client=client,
        model="gpt-4.1-mini",
        service=service,
        user_prompt=prompt,
    )

    print(result)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Run the script

python main.py

If the model does not call tools, make the prompt more explicit, for example:

• Get my account
• List positions
• Show recent orders