TL;DR
Build AI-agents in 5 lines of code. Skip the set up & infrastructure. Live and running.
from custodian_labs import Custodian
app = Custodian(
model="gpt-4o",
system_prompt="You are a concise, helpful assistant.",
).deploy()
print(app.chat("Hello!").response)
print(app.chat_url) # ← live, shareable URL
Runnable Colab notebook here.
Skip the infrastructure
DIYing this: FastAPI behind a reverse proxy + Redis for sessions + a small frontend + an auth layer + a vector DB and ingestion pipeline. All of it is annoying. Most teams burn weeks on plumbing before the interesting work even starts.
Setup
Grab a free API key from the dashboard, then:
!pip install -q custodian-labs
import os
from getpass import getpass
os.environ["CUSTODIAN_SDK_API_KEY"] = getpass("API key: ")
The basic deploy
from custodian_labs import Custodian
app = Custodian(
model="gpt-4o",
system_prompt="You are a concise, helpful assistant.",
).deploy()
reply = app.chat("In one sentence, what can you help me with?")
print(reply.response)
print("\nShareable chat URL:", app.chat_url)
What you get back:
-
app— handle to a live hosted agent. -
reply.response— the text. -
reply.session_id— pass it to the next.chat()to continue the conversation. -
app.chat_url— live URL to a hosted chat UI. Paste in Slack, share with PMs, done.
Adding your own data (RAG)
from custodian_labs import Custodian
agent = Custodian(
model="gpt-4o",
system_prompt=(
"You answer questions about the car dataset you've been given. "
"Be specific and cite the numbers."
),
)
agent.add_data_source_file("data_examples/car_info.csv")
app = agent.deploy()
reply = app.chat(
"Which SUV has the best city MPG, and what is its annual maintenance cost?"
)
print(reply.response)
print("\nShareable chat URL:", app.chat_url)
add_data_source_file handles chunking, embedding, and retrieval at chat time. Works on CSVs, PDFs, and the usual suspects — calling code doesn't change whether you point it at a CSV or a folder of contracts.
Ideas worth stealing
- Internal "ask the docs" bots — handbook / Notion export / product wiki → drop the chat URL in Slack.
- Customer support assistants — RAG over help-center articles + past tickets, in front of a human escalation path.
- Sales / RFP helpers — past proposals + contracts, so reps can ask "how did we answer security questions for X?"
- Research assistants — folder of PDFs (papers, reports, filings), chat the corpus.
- Onboarding helpers — runbooks + architecture docs so new hires can self-serve without bothering a senior.
- Personal knowledge agents — your notes or saved articles, hosted at a URL you can hit from anywhere.
Same shape for all of them: write a system prompt, attach docs, deploy, share the URL.
Try it
The Colab notebook runs end-to-end with sample data — bring no files, just a free key from the dashboard. Should take ~1 min.
I'd genuinely love feedback — what's missing, what's confusing, what would make you actually use it. Feature requests very welcome. Drop them in the comments, or email sherry@custodianlabs.io if you build something with it (or break it in an interesting way).
Next posts coming on multi-agent teams with topic routing, and the PII / proprietary-data masking layer for legal and healthcare agents.
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