patent

patent takes a plain-English dev-tool idea and searches 11 open-source registries — crates.io, npm, PyPI, GitHub, 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"

# 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	qwen2.5
--api-base <URL>	OpenAI-compatible base URL (must end in /v1)	—
--api-key <KEY>	API key for --api-base; or set OPENAI_API_KEY	—
--limit <N>	max matches to keep after ranking	50
--completions <SHELL>	print shell completions and exit	—

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
?	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.