Vendor Tools (PraisonAI-Tools)

Install third-party API tools (Stripe, Slack, Jira, financial data, etc.) as pip plugins from PraisonAI-Tools

Vendor tools are third-party API integrations you add to an agent with one pip install and a name in tools=[].

Quick Start

1. Install the plugin

   pip install praisonai-tools-stripe
   
2. Use it in your agent

   from praisonaiagents import Agent
   
   agent = Agent(
       name="Finance Analyst",
       instructions="Analyze market data",
       tools=["stripe_balance"],
   )
   
   agent.start("What is our current Stripe balance?")
   

   The tool is auto-discovered by name after install — no imports needed.

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How It Works

The agent resolves a tool name to a vendor plugin installed through pip, calls the vendor API, and replies with the result.

Installed plugins register under the praisonai.tools entry-point group and become available by name — the same mechanism documented in Custom Tools.

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Three-Tier Tool Ecosystem

PraisonAI tools live in three places. Pick the tier that matches where your tool belongs.

Tier	Where it lives	Use for
Core legacy bundled	praisonaiagents.tools (e.g. tavily_tools.py, exa_tools.py, github_tools.py, duckduckgo_tools.py, searxng_tools.py, spider_tools.py, crawl4ai_tools.py, youdotcom_tools.py, jira_tools.py, email_tools.py)	Backward-compat only — not a template for new modules
PraisonAI-Tools pip plugins	PraisonAI-Tools	All new vendor / third-party API integrations
Custom / single-file	Your project	Your own project-local logic

“Same shape as Tavily/Exa” is a consistency check, not a routing one. Do not propose a new connector for core on precedent alone.

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Keep in Core or Route Out?

A tool only stays in praisonaiagents.tools if both left-column conditions hold. Any right-column condition routes it to PraisonAI-Tools.

Keep in core praisonaiagents.tools	Route to PraisonAI-Tools
Local-state only — filesystem, shell, Python, AST, todo, schedule — or framework plumbing (delegation, subagent, session, artifact, memory, clarify)	Calls a third-party / remote API or SaaS
Uses only stdlib or already-required core deps	Needs service-specific auth or SDK; is a vendor connector (search, data, CRM, DB, messaging)

A macro / FX data client that uses only urllib still routes to PraisonAI-Tools. The dependency is the external service plus credentials, not the HTTP library.

Your own project logic? Use a custom tool or single-file plugin instead.

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Install Flow

Install one or more vendor plugins, then reference each by name.

1. Install plugins

   pip install praisonai-tools-stripe
   
2. Add tool names to your agent

   from praisonaiagents import Agent
   
   agent = Agent(
       name="Finance Analyst",
       instructions="Analyze market data",
       tools=["yfinance", "stripe_balance"],
   )
   
   agent.start("Summarise AAPL year-to-date and our Stripe balance")
   

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How Auto-Discovery Works

Plugins declare a praisonai.tools entry point in their pyproject.toml; PraisonAI scans these on first use and registers each tool by name.

[project.entry-points."praisonai.tools"]
stripe_balance = "praisonai_tools_stripe:StripeBalanceTool"

See the Creating a Pip-Installable Tool Package section for the full publish flow.

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Routing is Not Fencing

Installing a vendor plugin decides where the code lives. It does not decide how the LLM treats its results.

A vendor result is only fenced (wrapped in <external_tool_result> safety markers) when one of these is true:

• the tool name is in the module-level EXTERNAL_TOOL_NAMES set, or
• it was registered with ToolTrustLevel.EXTERNAL.

Register your vendor tool for fencing at startup:

from praisonaiagents import Agent
from praisonaiagents.tools.trust import add_external_tool

add_external_tool("stripe_balance")

agent = Agent(
    name="Finance Analyst",
    instructions="Analyze market data",
    tools=["stripe_balance"],
)
agent.start("What is our current Stripe balance?")

See Prompt Injection Protection for the full trust layer.

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Contributing a New Vendor Tool

New vendor integrations belong in PraisonAI-Tools, not in the core SDK. A PR that adds a new *_tools.py module to MervinPraison/PraisonAI core is flagged Repo routing ❌ by the merge gate and redirected. Matching an existing connector pattern (Tavily / Exa / You.com) does not exempt it.

Publish your plugin to PraisonAI-Tools and users install it with a single pip install.

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Best Practices

Prefer pip plugins for vendor APIs

Any public third-party API or SaaS integration goes in PraisonAI-Tools as an installable plugin, not in core.

Reference tools by name

After pip install, add the tool name to tools=[] — no import line is required.

Keep secrets in the environment

Read API keys from environment variables inside the plugin; never hard-code credentials.

Use custom tools for internal logic

Project-specific logic belongs in a custom tool or single-file plugin, not a published vendor package.

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Related

Custom Tools

Build and publish your own tools

Single-File Plugins

Drop-in local Python plugins

Tools Overview

Browse PraisonAI tool documentation

MCP

Connect external tool servers