Pyllments Documentation
  • Getting Started
  • How-To
  • Elements
  • API Reference
  1. 🚀 Introduction
  • 🚀 Introduction
  • 🔧 Installation
  • 🎓 Getting Started Tutorial
  • 📋 How To
    • How to Build a Chat Interface
    • How to Use Conversation History
    • How to Use a Retriever
  • 🧩 Elements
    • ContextBuilderElement
    • MCPElement
    • LLMChatElement
    • APIElement
    • PipeElement
    • HistoryHandlerElement
    • DiscordElement
    • TelegramElement
    • StructuredRouterTransformer
    • ChatInterfaceElement
  • 💡 Explanation
    • Architecture
    • Elements
    • Ports
    • Views
  • 👨‍🍳 Recipes
    • Multi Chat Flow
    • Simple Flow API
    • Chat
    • Discord Chat
    • Branching Chat Flow

What is Pyllments?

Build Modular, LLM-Powered Applications with Ease.

🧩
Modular Components
⚡
Flow-Based Programming
🎨
Front End Framework
🔌
LLM + vDB Integrations

uv pip install pyllments

More info on installation

Pyllments is a Python library that empowers you to build rich, interactive applications powered by large language models. It provides a collection of modular Elements, each encapsulating its data, logic, and UI—that communicate through well-defined input and output ports. With simple flow-based programming, you can effortlessly compose, customize, and extend components to create everything from dynamic GUIs to scalable API-driven services.

It comes prepackaged with a set of parameterized application you can run immediately from the command line like so:

pyllments recipe run branch_chat --height 900 --width 700

See Recipes Here

Elements:

  • Easily integrate into your own projects
  • Have front end components associated with them, which allows you to build your own composable GUIs to interact with your flows
  • Can individually or in a flow be served as an API (with limitless endpoints at any given part of the flow)

Chat App Example

With history, a custom system prompt, and an interface.

Chat Flow (Click to Enlarge)

Chat Flow (Click to Enlarge)

In this example, we’ll build a simple chat application using four core Elements from the Pyllments library. Elements are modular components that handle specific functions and connect via ports to form a data flow graph.

  1. ChatInterfaceElement
    Manages the chat GUI, including the input box for typing messages, a send button, and a feed to display the conversation. It emits user messages and renders incoming responses.

  2. HistoryHandlerElement
    Maintains a running log of all messages (user and assistant) and tool responses. It can emit the current message history to be used as context for the LLM.

  3. ContextBuilderElement
    Combines multiple inputs into a structured list of messages for the LLM. This includes a predefined system prompt (e.g., setting the AI’s personality), the conversation history, and the latest user query.

  4. LLMChatElement
    Connects to a Large Language Model (LLM) provider, sends the prepared message list, and generates a response. It also offers a selector to choose different models or providers.

Here’s what happens step by step in the chat flow:

  1. User Input: You type a message in the ChatInterfaceElement and click send. This creates a MessagePayload with your text and the role ‘user’.
  2. History Update: Your message is sent via a port to the HistoryHandlerElement, which adds it to the conversation log.
  3. Context Building: The ContextBuilderElement receives your message and constructs the full context. It combines:
    • A fixed system prompt (e.g., “You are Marvin, a Paranoid Android.”),
    • The message history from HistoryHandlerElement (if available, up to a token limit),
    • Your latest query.
  4. LLM Request: This combined list is sent through a port to the LLMChatElement, which forwards it to the selected LLM (like OpenAI’s GPT-4o-mini).
  5. Response Handling: The LLM’s reply is packaged as a new MessagePayload with the role ‘assistant’ and sent back to the ChatInterfaceElement to be displayed in the chat feed.
  6. History Update (Again): The assistant’s response is also sent to the HistoryHandlerElement, updating the log for the next interaction.
  7. Cycle Repeats: The process loops for each new user message, building context anew each time.

chat_flow.py

from pyllments import flow
from pyllments.elements import ChatInterfaceElement, LLMChatElement, HistoryHandlerElement

# Instantiate the elements
chat_interface_el = ChatInterfaceElement()
llm_chat_el = LLMChatElement()
history_handler_el = HistoryHandlerElement(history_token_limit=3000)
context_builder_el = ContextBuilderElement(
    input_map={
        'system_prompt_constant': {
            'role': "system",
            'message': "You are Marvin, a Paranoid Android."
        },
        'history': {'ports': [history_handler_el.ports.message_history_output]},
        'query': {'ports': [chat_interface_el.ports.user_message_output]},
    },
    emit_order=['system_prompt_constant', '[history]', 'query']
)
# Connect the elements
chat_interface_el.ports.user_message_output > history_handler_el.ports.message_input
context_builder_el.ports.messages_output > llm_chat_el.ports.messages_input
llm_chat_el.ports.message_output > chat_interface_el.ports.message_emit_input
chat_interface_el.ports.assistant_message_output > history_handler_el.ports.message_emit_input

# Create the visual elements and wrap with @flow decorator to serve with pyllments
@flow
def interface():
    width = 950
    height = 800
    interface_view = chat_interface_el.create_interface_view(width=int(width*.75))
    model_selector_view = llm_chat_el.create_model_selector_view(
        models=config.custom_models, 
        model=config.default_model
        )
    history_view = history_handler_el.create_context_view(width=int(width*.25))

    main_view = pn.Row(
        pn.Column(
            model_selector_view,
            pn.Spacer(height=10),
            interface_view,
        ),
        pn.Spacer(width=10),
        history_view,
        styles={'width': 'fit-content'},
        height=height
    )
    return main_view

CLI Command

pyllments serve chat_flow.py

For more in-depth material, check our Getting Started Tutorial

Elements are building blocks with a consistent interface


Elements can create and manage easily composable front-end components called Views

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Using their Ports interface, Elements can be connected in endless permutations.

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Attach API endpoints to any part of the flow

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Key Features:

  • Modular Architecture: Build applications using interconnected Elements, each containing its own business logic and visualization components.

  • Reactive Design: Utilizes the Param library for reactive programming, ensuring seamless updates between models and views.

  • Visualization Support: Leverages the Panel library for creating interactive web-based user interfaces.

  • LLM Integration: Easily incorporate Large Language Models into your applications.

  • Flexible Connectivity: Elements communicate through input and output ports, allowing for complex data flows. Payload System: A versatile payload system for handling various types of data, including text, images, and audio.