SharpCoder 0.3.0-alpha.5

SharpCoder

A standalone, embeddable autonomous coding agent for .NET — built on Microsoft.Extensions.AI.

SharpCoder gives any IChatClient (OpenAI, Ollama, Azure, Anthropic, etc.) the ability to read files, write code, search codebases, and execute shell commands autonomously. Plug it into your app with a few lines of code.

Features

• Provider-agnostic — works with any IChatClient implementation
• Built-in tools — file read/write/edit, glob, grep, bash, and skills
• Security by default — path traversal protection, bash disabled by default
• Workspace-aware — auto-loads AGENTS.md and .github/copilot-instructions.md
• Rich results — token usage, tool call count, full message history
• Targets netstandard2.1 — runs on .NET Core 3+, .NET 5–10, and beyond

Quick Start

dotnet add package SharpCoder

using Microsoft.Extensions.AI;
using SharpCoder;

// Use any IChatClient — OpenAI, Ollama, Azure, etc.
IChatClient chatClient = new OllamaChatClient("http://localhost:11434", "qwen2.5-coder");

var agent = new CodingAgent(chatClient, new AgentOptions
{
    WorkDirectory = "/path/to/your/project",
    MaxSteps = 15
});

var result = await agent.ExecuteAsync("Add unit tests for the Calculator class");

Console.WriteLine($"Status: {result.Status}");
Console.WriteLine($"Tool calls: {result.ToolCallCount}");
Console.WriteLine($"Tokens used: {result.Usage?.TotalTokenCount}");
Console.WriteLine(result.Message);

Configuration

All behavior is controlled through AgentOptions:

var options = new AgentOptions
{
    // Where the agent operates (default: current directory)
    WorkDirectory = "/my/project",

    // Max tool call iterations before stopping (default: 25)
    MaxSteps = 25,

    // Enable shell command execution (default: false — security risk!)
    EnableBash = false,

    // File system tools (default: true)
    EnableFileOps = true,
    EnableFileWrites = true,

    // Skill loading from .github/skills/ (default: true)
    EnableSkills = true,

    // Override the default system prompt
    SystemPrompt = "You are a test-writing expert.",

    // Append custom instructions to the system prompt
    CustomInstructions = "Always use xUnit. Prefer Arrange-Act-Assert.",

    // Auto-load AGENTS.md and copilot-instructions.md (default: true)
    AutoLoadWorkspaceInstructions = true,

    // Add your own custom AITools
    CustomTools = new List<AITool>
    {
        AIFunctionFactory.Create(MyCustomTool)
    }
};

Built-in Tools

Agent Result

ExecuteAsync returns an AgentResult with:

result.Status        // "Success" or "Error"
result.Message       // Final text response from the agent
result.Messages      // Full conversation history (all messages, tool calls, results)
result.ToolCallCount // Number of tool invocations made
result.ModelId       // Model that produced the response
result.FinishReason  // Why the model stopped (e.g. "stop", "length")
result.Usage         // Token counts (InputTokenCount, OutputTokenCount, TotalTokenCount)

Skills

The agent can discover and load project-specific skills from .github/skills/. Each skill is a Markdown file with YAML frontmatter:

---
name: build
description: How to build this project
---

# Build Instructions

Run `dotnet build` to compile the solution.

The agent calls list_skills to discover what's available and load_skill to read the full instructions.

Security

• Path traversal protection — all file operations are confined to WorkDirectory
• Bash disabled by default — opt in explicitly with EnableBash = true
• No sandboxing for bash — when enabled, the agent has full shell access with the process's privileges. Only enable in trusted environments (containers, CI runners)

License

MIT