Tadpole

Tadpole is an open-source tool-using LLM agent built from scratch in Python that runs in the terminal or via Telegram.

Tadpole is a tool-using LLM agent built from scratch in about 3,500 lines of plain Python without any agent framework. It provides file management, shell execution, web search, session management, and context compaction capabilities. Users can run the agent locally using models like Qwen3-4B or connect to any OpenAI-compatible API such as OpenAI, DeepSeek, or OpenRouter. The system operates either in the terminal or as an always-on Telegram bot. The project includes a comprehensive stage-by-stage tutorial detailing its construction, testing, supervised fine-tuning, and expert iteration.

Tadpole at a glance

Best for: Software engineer
Runs on: macOS, Windows, Linux, CLI, open source
Pricing: Free and open source under the MIT license
Released: October 2026
Category: AI agent tool
Website: github.com/shakewingo/tadpole

Key features

Run in the terminal or as a Telegram bot
File management and shell execution tools
Web search and fetch capabilities
Multi-turn sessions with context compaction
Support for local models and OpenAI-compatible APIs
Stage-by-stage from-scratch Python implementation
Post-training tutorials including SFT and expert iteration

Use it for

Manage files and execute shell commands via chat
Search the web and fetch content through an LLM agent
Run an always-on assistant via Telegram
Study how to build and post-train an LLM agent from scratch

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