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Self-improving AI dev assistant (CLI + web) that writes and hot-loads its own tools via the Anthropic API.

by Pietro Schirano (Doriandarko)Doriandarko/claude-engineer

Stars11.2k

Forks1.2k

Watchers137

Open issues49

Licensen/a

Last push1 year ago

Install

install

$ git clone https://github.com/Doriandarko/claude-engineer.git

Update

update

$ git pull

Standalone repo, not a plugin: cd into the clone and run `git pull`, then re-run `uv venv` / re-sync deps if requirements changed.

When to use it

You want a self-contained agentic coding assistant that decides which tools to run and chains them autonomously.
You need an assistant that can invent and hot-load brand-new tools mid-conversation via the Tool Creator.
You prefer a standalone CLI or web app over an in-editor harness, with built-in token tracking and image analysis.
You want to study or fork a popular reference implementation of a self-improving, tool-generating agent.

Commands & flags

uv run ce3.py: Launch the CLI assistant (rich terminal UI, token tracking, live tool execution).
uv run app.py: Launch the web interface at http://localhost:5000 (image upload, token visualization).
toolcreator: Built-in Tool Creator: generates a new tool from a natural-language description and hot-loads it.
e2bcodetool: E2B Code Executor: runs Python in a sandbox (needs E2B_API_KEY) for analysis, viz, and computation.
duckduckgotool / webscrapertool / browsertool: Web search, readable-content scraping, and open-URL-in-browser tools.
fileedittool / diffeditortool / filecreatortool: Full/partial file edits, exact-substring diff replacement, and file creation.

How to use it

This is a standalone Python app (Claude Engineer v3), not a Claude Code skill/plugin. Clone it and run with uv:

git clone https://github.com/Doriandarko/claude-engineer.git
cd claude-engineer
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

uv run ce3.py   # CLI
uv run app.py   # web UI at http://localhost:5000

Add API keys to a .env file (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY required; E2B_API_KEY for the code executor):

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_anthropic_key
E2B_API_KEY=your_e2b_key

Talk to it like a coding assistant; it picks tools automatically. When it lacks a capability, the Tool Creator writes a new tool into tools/ and hot-reloads it for the rest of the session. Requires Python 3.8+.

Why it earns its place

One of the most-starred open-source agentic assistants and a canonical reference for the "agent that builds its own tools" pattern, from Pietro Schirano (@skirano). The Tool Creator plus hot-reload loop means the framework grows new capabilities during a conversation instead of shipping a fixed toolset, and it bundles a practical kit out of the box: E2B sandboxed code execution, Ruff linting, file/diff editing, DuckDuckGo search/scrape, and screenshots. Ships both a rich CLI and a web UI with real token tracking, making it a solid base to fork.

Try it

claude

> Build me a tool that fetches a sitemap, then use it to crawl example.com and summarize the top 10 pages.