Instant.bot Tool Package CLI

Extend AI agents with tools, instantly

intool is the official CLI for publishing Instant.bot tool packages. You can use this utility to publish new packages to the Instant Tool Package Registry, available at instant.bot/packages.

Instant.bot enables you to rapidly build custom chatbots and AI agents that can be extended with custom tools. It provides four major features;

1. Chat with and develop your agent in real time from the web
2. Extend your agent with hosted tool packages
3. Write your own private tools for your agents
4. Deploy your agent to third-party services like Discord and Slack

What is the Instant Tool Package Registry?

Instant Tool Packages are just REST API servers.

They are built with the Instant API framework, which is a simple way to export and auto-document JavaScript functions as REST endpoints that can be called via any HTTP client.

The Instant Tool Package Registry is a serverless hosting platform and registry for Instant API projects.

Authentication to your published tools are handled via API keychains which are delegated via Instant.bot.

NOTE: While in beta, only Instant.bot agents can use your published tools. We'll be opening up the gateway to programmatic access in the coming months.

Instant Tool Package vs. MCP

Reminder, Instant Tool Packages are just REST API servers.

MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is a standard for passing tool and prompt context between AI models and service providers. Instant Tool Packages are not MCP compatible out of the box, as they are simply REST APIs. However, it is our goal to add MCP bindings to the Instant API framework which powers all Instant Tool Packages. When formalized, this will allow you to use Instant Tool Packages with any MCP-compatible client or service provider. Contributors welcome!

Quickstart

Visit instant.bot/signup to register. Build a new bot is easy, you can then use this CLI to develop and publish custom packages to extend your bots.

$ npm i intool -g
$ mkdir new-project
$ cd new-project
$ intool init  # initialize project in this directory
$ intool login # log in to Instant Tool Package Registry with your Instant.bot account
$ intool serve # run your tool package on a local server to test
$ intool run / # test a single endpoint (like curl)
$ intool up    # publish to development environment
$ intool up --env staging    # publish to staging environment
$ intool up --env production # publish to production environment

You can run intool help at any time to see available commands.

Table of contents

1. How does Instant.bot work?
   1. Is this free or paid
2. Building custom packages for your bots
   1. Initialize a project
      1. Defining tools aka endpoints
      2. Endpoint name, description, types
   2. Deploy an Instant Tool Package
      1. Public packages
      2. Private packages
3. Additional tools
   1. Generate endpoints
   2. Generate tests
   3. Run tests
   4. Environment variables
4. Roadmap
5. Contact

How does Instant.bot work?

Instant.bot provides hosting for both (1) your agent and (2) your tool packages. Your agent is a chatbot that you can chat with directly via the Instant.bot web interface. Tool packages are REST APIs that can be used by your agent. You can publish tool packages for use by your agent and others or keep them private.

When you ask your agent a question that requires a tool call, Instant.bot will automatically route the request to the appropriate tool from the Instant Tool Package Registry and call the tool on your behalf.

Is this free or paid?

Model usage (generating responses) is a subscription-based service. However, for development purposes, you can use our lowest-tier model indefinitely in rate-limited mode on the free tier but only while on the web interface.

Tools cost money to run, and are billed as serverless functions at a rate of $0.50 of creditsper 1,000 GB-s of usage.

GB-s represents a "gigabyte-second" and is calculated by the function RAM × execution time. For example, a function with 512 MB (0.5 GB) of RAM running for 200ms would use:

• Used GB-s = 0.5GB × 0.2s = 0.1 GB-s
• Used credits = $0.50 / 1,000 GB-s × 0.1 GB-s = $0.00005

While in beta all users get $1.00 in free usage credits to start with.

Building custom packages for your bots

Building bots on Instant.bot is straightforward. Extending with custom tool packages can be done online via the web interface, or if you prefer working with your own editor, you can use this CLI.

Initialize a project

To initialize a new Instant Tool Package project:

$ npm i intool -g
$ mkdir new-project
$ cd new-project
$ intool init

You'll be walked through the process. The intool CLI will automatically check for updates to core packages, so make sure you update when available. To play around with your Instant Tool Package locally;

$ intool serve

Will start an HTTP server. To execute a standalone endpoint / tool:

$ intool run /

Defining tools aka endpoints

Defining custom tools is easy. You'll find the terms tool and endpoint used interchangeably as they all refer to the same thing: your bot executing custom code in the cloud.

A tool is just an endpoint hosted by the Instant Tool Package Registry.

All endpoints for Instant Tool Packages live in the functions/ directory. Each file name maps to the endpoint route e.g. functions/hello.mjs routes to localhost:8000/hello. You can export custom GET, POST, PUT and DELETE functions from every file. Here's an example "hello world" endpoint:

// functions/hello.mjs (mjs is node module default)

/**
 * A basic hello world function
 * @param {string} name Your name
 * @returns {string} message The return message
 */
export async function GET (name = 'world') {
  return `hello ${name}`!
};

You can write any code you want and install any NPM packages you'd like to your tool package.

Endpoint name, description, types

Using the comment block above every exported method (e.g. GET) you can define your endpoint. Instant Tool Packages use an open source specification called Instant API to export JavaScript functions as type safe web APIs. You can learn more about how to properly define and document the shape (parameters) of your API there.

Deploy an Instant Tool Package

Public packages

NOTE: You will not be charged for other people using your public actions. They are billed directly from their account.

By default all packages are created as public projects. Public projects are namespaced to your username, e.g. @my-username/project. This can be found in the "name" field of intool.json.

Note that the code for public projects will be shared publicly for anybody to see, and the expectation is that others can use this code in their bots as well. they will be billed from their balance.

To deploy a public project to a development environment, you can use:

$ intool up

You can also publish to staging and production using:

$ intool up --env staging
$ intool up --env production

Private packages

NOTE: You WILL be charged by anybody accessing your private packages. However, all code and endpoints will not be publicly available; you must share the URL with somebody in order for them to use it.

You can publish private project by prepending private/ on the "name" field in intool.json, e.g.

{
  "name": "private/@my-username/private-package"
}

You then deploy as normal. These packages will be visible by you in the registry but nobody else.

Additional tools

There are a few additional utilities you may find useful with this package;

Generate endpoints

# generates functions/my-endpoint/example.mjs
$ intool g:endpoint my-endpoint/example

Generate tests

# Generate blank tests or ones for an endpoint
$ intool g:test my_test # OR ...
$ intool g:test --endpoint my-endpoint/example

Run tests

You can write tests for your tools to verify they work. Simply run;

$ intool test

And voila!

Environment variables

You can store environment variables with your packages in;

.env
.env.production
.env.staging

These files will not be published for everybody to see, so you can use them to hide secrets within your code. However, be careful when using environment variables with public packages: if you ever return them in an endpoint response, or connect to sensitive data, there's a chance you may expose that information to another user of the platform.

Roadmap

There's a lot to build! Instant.bot is still in early beta. Coming soon;

• Deploy to Slack
• Uploading image support
• Knowledge bases
• Much more!

Submit requests via Discord at discord.gg/instant!

Contact

The best place for help and support is Discord at discord.gg/instant, but feel free to bookmark all of these links.

| Destination | Link | | ----------- | ---- | | Instant.bot | instant.bot | | GitHub | github.com/instantbots | | Discord | discord.gg/instant | | X / instantbots | x.com/instantbots | | X / Keith Horwood | x.com/keithwhor |