php-agents

PHP 8.4+ framework for building AI agents with tool-use loops, provider abstraction, and composable toolkits.

Build agents that can read files, browse the web, execute code, and use custom tools — powered by any OpenAI-compatible API, Anthropic, or local models via Ollama.

graph LR
    APP[Your App] --> AGENT[Agent]
    AGENT --> PROVIDER[Provider<br/>OpenAI / Anthropic / Ollama]
    AGENT --> TOOLS[Tools & Toolkits<br/>Files / Web / Shell / Memory]
    AGENT --> OBSERVER[Observers<br/>Logging / Streaming / Metrics]
    PROVIDER --> LLM[LLM]
    LLM -->|tool calls| AGENT
    TOOLS -->|results| AGENT

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Features

• Agentic tool-use loop — automatic iteration: the LLM calls tools, processes results, and decides when it's done
• Multi-provider — Ollama (local), OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
• Streaming + tool calls — both OpenAI and Anthropic providers support streaming with assembled tool call deltas
• Structured output — extract typed data from LLMs via JSON mode (OpenAI) or tool-use trick (Anthropic)
• Image input — send base64 images to vision models (auto-converts between OpenAI and Anthropic formats)
• Bundled agents — FileAgent, WebAgent, CodeAgent ready to use out of the box
• Composable toolkits — filesystem, web, shell, and memory toolkits that snap onto any agent
• Context window management — automatic conversation pruning when approaching token limits
• Observer pattern — attach SplObserver to watch agent lifecycle events in real time
• Security by default — path traversal protection, SSRF blocking, shell injection detection
• OpenClaw config — centralized model routing with aliases, fallbacks, and per-provider settings
• Zero framework coupling — depends only on symfony/http-client and psr/log

Provider Feature Matrix

Feature	OpenAI Compatible	Ollama	Anthropic
chat()	✅	✅	✅
stream()	✅	✅	✅
structured()	✅	✅	✅
Tool calling	✅	✅	✅
Streaming + tool calls	✅	✅	✅
Image input (base64)	✅	✅	✅
models() list	✅	✅	✅
isAvailable()	✅	✅	✅

Requirements

• PHP 8.4 or later
• Extensions: curl, json, mbstring
• Composer 2.x
• Ollama (recommended for local inference)

Installation

composer require carmelosantana/php-agents

Quick Start

Create an agent that can read files and answer questions about them:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Agent\FileAgent;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Provider\OllamaProvider;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Message\UserMessage;

$provider = new OllamaProvider(model: 'llama3.2');

$agent = new FileAgent(
    provider: $provider,
    rootPath: getcwd(),
    readOnly: true,
);

$output = $agent->run(new UserMessage('Summarize the README.md file.'));

echo $output->content . "\n";

Make sure Ollama is running: ollama serve and a model is pulled: ollama pull llama3.2

Bundled Agents

Agent	Description	Toolkits
FileAgent	Read, write, search, and manage files within a sandboxed root path	FilesystemToolkit
WebAgent	Make HTTP requests and optionally search the web	WebToolkit
CodeAgent	Filesystem access + shell command execution with an allowlist	FilesystemToolkit + ShellToolkit

Providers

use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Provider\OllamaProvider;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Provider\OpenAICompatibleProvider;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Provider\AnthropicProvider;

// Ollama (local — no API key needed)
$provider = new OllamaProvider(model: 'llama3.2');

// OpenAI
$provider = new OpenAICompatibleProvider(
    model: 'gpt-4o',
    apiKey: getenv('OPENAI_API_KEY'),
);

// Anthropic
$provider = new AnthropicProvider(
    model: 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
    apiKey: getenv('ANTHROPIC_API_KEY'),
);

// Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (OpenRouter, Together, Groq, vLLM, etc.)
$provider = new OpenAICompatibleProvider(
    model: 'meta-llama/llama-3.1-70b-instruct',
    apiKey: getenv('OPENROUTER_API_KEY'),
    baseUrl: 'https://openrouter.ai/api/v1',
);

Creating Custom Agents

Extend AbstractAgent and implement instructions():

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace MyPackage;

use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Agent\AbstractAgent;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Contract\ProviderInterface;

final class DatabaseAgent extends AbstractAgent
{
    public function __construct(ProviderInterface $provider)
    {
        parent::__construct($provider, maxIterations: 10);
    }

    public function instructions(): string
    {
        return 'You are a database agent. Query databases and return results.';
    }

    public function name(): string
    {
        return 'DatabaseAgent';
    }
}

Register toolkits in the constructor with $this->addToolkit() to give your agent capabilities.

Creating Custom Tools

Define tools with typed parameters and a callback:

use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Tool\Tool;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Tool\ToolResult;
use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Tool\Parameter\StringParameter;

$tool = new Tool(
    name: 'word_count',
    description: 'Count words in the given text',
    parameters: [
        new StringParameter('text', 'The text to count words in', required: true),
    ],
    callback: fn(array $args): ToolResult => ToolResult::success(
        'Word count: ' . str_word_count($args['text']),
    ),
);

Group related tools into a toolkit by implementing ToolkitInterface:

use CarmeloSantana\PHPAgents\Contract\ToolkitInterface;

final class MyToolkit implements ToolkitInterface
{
    public function tools(): array
    {
        return [$this->buildWordCountTool(), /* ... */];
    }

    public function guidelines(): string
    {
        return 'Use these tools to analyze text.';
    }
}

Toolkit Auto-Discovery

Publish your toolkit as a Composer package with auto-discovery:

{
    "extra": {
        "php-agents": {
            "toolkits": ["Acme\\MyToolkit\\MyToolkit"],
            "credentials": {
                "MY_API_KEY": "API key for MyService — get one at https://myservice.com/keys"
            }
        }
    }
}

Documentation

Guide	Description
Architecture	System design, Mermaid diagrams, extension points
Getting Started	Installation, provider setup, first agent
Providers	Feature matrix, streaming, structured output, images
Tools & Toolkits	Parameter types, execution policies, publishing packages
Agents	Agent loop, observers, cancellation, context window
Memory	Persistent storage, vector search, embeddings

Examples

Working examples live in the examples/ directory:

Example	Description	Run
CLI Chat	Interactive terminal conversation with an LLM	php examples/cli-chat.php
README Summarizer	Web UI that auto-summarizes this README using a FileAgent	php -S localhost:8080 -t examples/web-summarizer/

How Coqui Uses php-agents

Coqui is a full AI assistant product built on php-agents. It demonstrates the framework's extensibility:

• php-agents is the library — agent loop, providers, tools, messages, memory
• Coqui is the product — REPL, API server, session persistence, multi-agent orchestration, credential management, security policies, toolkit discovery

Coqui adds ~75 files of product logic on top of php-agents' ~74 files of framework code, with zero code duplication. Every Coqui agent (OrchestratorAgent, ChildAgent) extends AbstractAgent — they are purely configuration layers.

License

MIT