pi-patent

CLI that iterates a short inventor disclosure into a full utility patent draft plus a layman explanation, via an interactive intake and a ralph loop (drafter ↔ fresh-context evaluator).

Built on @mariozechner/pi-ai and @mariozechner/pi-agent-core.

Install (dev)

git clone <your repo> && cd pi-patent
npm install
npm run build

Install (AppImage — Linux)

Download the latest pi-patent-x86_64.AppImage from the internal artifact store, then:

chmod +x pi-patent-x86_64.AppImage
./pi-patent-x86_64.AppImage --help

Usage

# Interactive — prompts for disclosure on stdin
pi-patent

# Read disclosure from file
pi-patent --input disclosure.md

# Piped stdin
cat disclosure.md | pi-patent

# Options
pi-patent --max-iter 3 --quiet
pi-patent --out ./my-patents/
pi-patent --no-web
pi-patent --model claude-sonnet-4-6

Authentication

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-...
export TAVILY_API_KEY=tvly-...             # optional, only if web_search enabled

# OR use OAuth
pi-patent login codex                       # GPT-5 Codex models (ChatGPT OAuth)
# (Anthropic OAuth removed — Anthropic's ToS prohibits programmatic OAuth.
#  Use $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.)

OAuth tokens are cached at ${XDG_DATA_HOME:-~/.local/share}/pi-patent/oauth/.

Config (optional)

Copy this to ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/pi-patent/config.toml:

provider = "anthropic"
model    = "claude-sonnet-4-6"

max_iter = 5
default_axis_threshold = 4
out_dir  = "~/patents"
web_search = true
search_provider = "tavily"

[rubric]
basic_novelty = 3

[models.drafter]
provider = "anthropic"
model    = "claude-sonnet-4-6"
thinking = "medium"

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
2	User error (bad config, missing key, intake rejected, empty disclosure)
3	LLM protocol error (malformed tool output)
4	External service failure (Tavily or LLM persistent 5xx)
130	Ctrl-C
1	Unexpected

Development

See docs/specs/2026-04-23-patent-draft-cli-design.md for architecture and docs/plans/2026-04-23-patent-draft-cli.md for the implementation plan.

npm run check    # biome + tsc --noEmit
npm test         # vitest
npm run build:appimage   # full Linux AppImage