Vendor Tools (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

Install the plugin

pip install praisonai-tools-stripe

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.

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.

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`	Existing built-ins (kept for backward compatibility — no new modules accepted)
PraisonAI-Tools pip plugins	PraisonAI-Tools	All new vendor / third-party API integrations
Custom / single-file	Your project	Your own project-local logic

Which Option Should I Pick?

Install Flow

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

Install plugins

pip install praisonai-tools-stripe

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")

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.

Contributing a New Vendor Tool

New vendor integrations belong in PraisonAI-Tools, not in the core SDK. Pull requests that add a new *_tools.py module to MervinPraison/PraisonAI core are blocked by the merge gate unless a maintainer applies the maintainer-accept-core-tools label.

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

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.

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

​Quick Start

​How It Works

​Three-Tier Tool Ecosystem

​Which Option Should I Pick?

​Install Flow

​How Auto-Discovery Works

​Contributing a New Vendor Tool

​Best Practices

​Related

Custom Tools

Single-File Plugins

Tools Overview

MCP

Quick Start

How It Works

Three-Tier Tool Ecosystem

Which Option Should I Pick?

Install Flow

How Auto-Discovery Works

Contributing a New Vendor Tool

Best Practices

Related