patchpal 0.12.2

An agentic coding and automation assistant, supporting both local and cloud LLMs

PatchPal — A Claude Code–Style Agent in Python

An agentic coding and automation assistant, supporting both local and cloud LLMs.

PatchPal is an AI coding agent that helps you build software, debug issues, and automate tasks. Like Claude Code, it supports agent skills, tool use, and executable Python generation, enabling interactive workflows for tasks such as data analysis, visualization, web scraping, API interactions, and research with synthesized findings.

A key goal of this project is to approximate Claude Code's core functionality while remaining lean, accessible, and configurable, enabling learning, experimentation, and broad applicability across use cases.

$ls ./patchpal
__init__.py agent.py  cli.py context.py permissions.py  skills.py system_prompt.md tool_schema.py tools

Full documentation is here.

Quick Start

$ pip install patchpal  # install
$ patchpal              # start

Setup

0. Install: pip install patchpal

1. Get an API key or a Local LLM Engine:

   • [Cloud] For Anthropic models (default): Sign up at https://console.anthropic.com/
   • [Cloud] For OpenAI models: Get a key from https://platform.openai.com/
   • [Local] For vLLM: Install from https://docs.vllm.ai/ (free - no API charges) Recommended for Local Use
   • [Local] For Ollama: Install from https://ollama.com/ (⚠️ requires OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=32768 - see Ollama section below)
   • For other providers: Check the LiteLLM documentation

2. Set up your API key as environment variable:

# For Anthropic (default)
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# For OpenAI
export OPENAI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# For vLLM - API key required only if configured
export HOSTED_VLLM_API_BASE=http://localhost:8000 # depends on your vLLM setup
export HOSTED_VLLM_API_KEY=token-abc123           # optional depending on your vLLM setup

# For Ollama, no API key required

# For other providers, check LiteLLM docs

3. Run PatchPal:

# Use default model (anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5)
patchpal

# Use a specific model via command-line argument
patchpal --model openai/gpt-5.2-codex  # or openai/gpt-5-mini, anthropic/claude-opus-4-5, etc.

# Use vLLM (local)
# Note: vLLM server must be started with --tool-call-parser and --enable-auto-tool-choice
# See "Using Local Models (vLLM & Ollama)" section below for details
export HOSTED_VLLM_API_BASE=http://localhost:8000
export HOSTED_VLLM_API_KEY=token-abc123
patchpal --model hosted_vllm/openai/gpt-oss-20b

# Use Ollama (local - requires OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=32768)
export OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=32768
patchpal --model ollama_chat/gpt-oss:20b

# Or set the model via environment variable
export PATCHPAL_MODEL=openai/gpt-5.2
patchpal

Features

• Terminal Interface similar to Claude Code
• Python API for flexibility and extensibility
• Built-In and Custom Tools
• Skills System
• Autopilot Mode using Ralph Wiggum loops
• Project Memory automatically loads project context from ~/.patchpal/<repo-name>/MEMORY.md at startup.

Beyond Coding: General Problem-Solving

While PatchPal excels at software development tasks, it's also a general-purpose assistant. With access to web search, file operations, and shell commands, PatchPal can help with research, data analysis, document processing, and more.

Documentation

Full documentation is available here.