patent

patent takes a plain-English dev-tool idea and searches 12 open-source registries — crates.io, npm, PyPI, GitHub, Homebrew, and more. Results are ranked by semantic similarity and summarised as Open, Crowded, or Saturated.

Like a patent search, but for code. It finds prior art, yet, never certifies absence.

Install

cargo install patent

Pre-built binaries are on the releases page.

Ollama (optional) powers the LLM verdict — install from ollama.com, then ollama pull qwen2.5. Use --fast to skip it entirely.

GitHub token (optional) — set GITHUB_TOKEN to raise the search rate limit from 10 to 30 requests/minute.

Linux build deps — needed before cargo install:

Fedora / RHEL: sudo dnf install openssl-devel gcc-c++
Ubuntu / Debian: sudo apt install libssl-dev g++

Usage

patent "interactive cli to kill whatever's on a port"

# interactive mode — launches a search prompt inside the TUI
patent

# no model warmup, no wait
patent "kubernetes log viewer" --fast

# pipe to jq
patent "react component for infinite scroll" --json | jq .

# use a cloud LLM instead of local Ollama
patent "kubernetes log viewer" --api-base https://api.openai.com/v1 --model gpt-4o-mini

Options

Flag	Description	Default
`--fast`	no LLM, no wait — verdict derived from similarity scores	—
`--json`	stdout JSON instead of the TUI	—
`--model <MODEL>`	model name for the verdict; or `PATENT_MODEL`	`qwen2.5`
`--api-base <URL>`	OpenAI-compatible base URL (must end in `/v1`); or `PATENT_API_BASE`	—
`--api-key <KEY>`	API key for `--api-base`; or `PATENT_API_KEY` / `OPENAI_API_KEY`	—
`--limit <N>`	max matches to keep after ranking	`50`
`--completions <SHELL>`	print shell completions and exit	—

Settings can also be stored in ~/.config/patent/config.toml:

model    = "gpt-4o-mini"
api_base = "https://api.openai.com/v1"
api_key  = "sk-..."

Precedence: CLI flag > environment variable > config file > built-in default.

TUI keybindings

Key	Action
`↑` / `k`	Scroll up
`↓` / `j`	Scroll down
`g` / `Home`	Jump to top
`G` / `End`	Jump to bottom
`/`	Filter matches
`s`	Cycle sort (similarity / popularity / name)
`m`	Show more / show less
`Enter`	Show match details (description, popularity, URL)
`o`	Open selected URL in browser
`y`	Copy selected URL to clipboard
`n`	New search (interactive mode)
`?`	Help overlay
`q`	Quit

Mouse works too — scroll with the wheel, click to select.

Shell completions

patent --completions bash >> ~/.bashrc    # Bash
patent --completions zsh  >> ~/.zshrc     # Zsh
patent --completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/patent.fish

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup and workflow. The good first issue and help wanted labels are a good starting point.

Development

cargo test
cargo fmt --all --check
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings

The demo GIF is generated with vhs: vhs demo.tape.

License

Licensed under either of MIT or Apache-2.0 at your option.

patent 0.5.1