Blob

Self-reference is all you need

Definition

Blob is a powerful tool that uses language large models (LLMs) to assist in the creation and maintenance of software projects. It is designed to provide a more intuitive and efficient way to work with source code, enabling developers to focus on their ideas and logic rather than the technicalities of programming. Blob is still in the experimental phase and may not yet be able to handle large-scale projects, but we are actively working on improving its capabilities and scalability.

Currently, Blob utilizes OpenAI's GPT-3 as its underlying engine, but we are also exploring the integration of other open source technologies through the use of adapters. Our ultimate goal is to make Blob a versatile and adaptable tool that can be used in a wide range of projects and environments.

⚠️ Warning

Please note that Blob is currently under development and is not yet suitable for production use. While you are welcome to try it out and provide feedback, we caution that it may have an incomplete implementation and may not function as intended. Our top priorities at this time are to improve the documentation and release stable binaries. Please check back with us for updates on the progress of these efforts.

Main Idea

The main idea behind Blob is to create a natural language reversible representation of the file struct and content of a software project. This way, we can ask GPT-3 to generate a new file structure based on natural language instructions. While we have tried different representations, the most simple and effective so far is a tree-like representation of the file structure.

For example, imagine you have a project in a folder called playground with the following structure:

playground/
├── source.ts
└── example.tsx

To add a new file called hello.tsx to the same folder, you can use the following command:

blob do "add a new file called hello.tsx"

The result will be:

playground/
├── source.ts
├── example.tsx
└── hello.tsx

Or, if you want to bootstrap a new Next.js project with TypeScript, you can do so with the following command:

blob do "bootstrap a new nextjs project"

This will result in the following file structure:

nextjs-starter/
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
├── package.json
├── pages
│   ├── _app.tsx
│   ├── _document.tsx
│   ├── index.tsx
│   └── about.tsx
├── public
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   ├── logo.png
│   └── robots.txt
├── src
│   ├── components
│   │   ├── header.tsx
│   │   └── layout.tsx
│   └── styles
│       └── global.css
└── tsconfig.json

To move the pages folder into the src folder, use the following command:

blob do "move the pages folder into the src folder"

This will result in the following file structure:

nextjs-starter/
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
├── package.json
├── public
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   ├── logo.png
│   └── robots.txt
├── src
│   ├── pages
│   │   ├── _app.tsx
│   │   ├── _document.tsx
│   │   ├── index.tsx
│   │   └── about.tsx
│   ├── components
│   │   ├── header.tsx
│   │   └── layout.tsx
│   └── styles
│       └── global.css
└── tsconfig.json

Usage

To interact with your Blob project, you can use the blob binary. You can see all the available commands by using the --help flag:

blob --help

Before you can use Blob, you will need to set the OPENAI_API_KEY environment variable to your OpenAI API key. You can get one here. You can set this variable using an .env file or directly in your shell.

By default, the current directory is assumed as the context for Blob, but you can specify a different directory using the --path (or -p) flag.

To perform a specific action or feature, you can use the blob do command followed by a natural language instruction. For example:

blob do "bootstrap a new nextjs project"

blob do "add some basic components for a design system"

blob do "add a new page to the project and put a big hello world in the center of this page"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
# Set up a new React project with Create React App
blob do "bootstrap a new React project using Create React App"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob do "add a new component called Button to the project"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob do "update the layout of the header component to use a fixed position at the top of the page"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob do "remove the unused component called Footer from the project"

These examples show how you can use the do command to perform a wide range of actions on your project, from setting up new projects and adding components to modifying and deleting existing elements.

To help improve the quality of the model's predictions, you can use the define command to provide definitions for terms related to your project. Simply type define followed by the definition, this sentence will be used as the self project definition. For example:

blob define "this project is a nextjs starter with typescript, tailwindcss, trpc, and chakra-ui"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob define "this project is an online platform for booking fitness classes"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob define "this project is a social media app for connecting with friends and family"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob define "this project is an ecommerce website for selling handmade crafts"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob define "this project is a mobile game about matching colors and shapes"

# Example provided by ChatGPT
blob define "this project is a news website for aggregating and curating articles from multiple sources"

Using the define command in this way allows you to provide a concise, self-contained definition of your project that can be used by the model to better understand the context and requirements of your instructions when using the do command. You can use the define command as many times as needed to add definitions for different terms or concepts in your project.

sudo cp target/release/blob /usr/local/bin/