What it does
smol developer is an MIT-licensed project that acts as a junior developer agent. Given a product spec, it plans the work, decides which files are needed and generates code for each one. It can scaffold an entire codebase, or serve as building blocks for a developer agent inside another application. It runs in three ways: from a cloned repository with a Python command, as an importable library installed with pip, or as a local server that follows the Agent Protocol and takes tasks over HTTP. The command-line mode defaults to the gpt-4-0613 model and has a flag to choose another. The workflow keeps a person in the loop. You refine the prompt, run the generated code, paste errors back into the prompt, or take over the code at any point. The README says a generation run takes roughly two to four minutes with GPT-4, and shows examples including a Chrome extension and a full-stack app.
Capabilities
- Plans a project and generates each file from a written prompt
- Library mode with plan, file-path and code-generation functions to call from your own app
- API mode following the Agent Protocol for creating tasks and running steps
- Command-line flags for model choice, longer prompts from a markdown file and debug output
- Debugger helper that reads the whole codebase to suggest specific fixes
When to use it
- Prototyping a small app from a written spec
- Embedding a code-generating agent in your own Python project
- Experimenting with prompt-driven scaffolding while a human reviews each iteration
