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Installation

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Step 1: Install the package

Proto-tools requires Python 3.10+:
bash
Proto-tools requires Pydantic 2.12 or newer. Registered calls revalidate input and configuration models while excluding computed fields, so environments pinned to an older Pydantic release must upgrade before installing this version. To use these tools from Claude, ChatGPT, or another AI assistant, connect our MCP server. See the MCP installation guide.
A direct PyPI install (pip install proto-tools) will be available soon.
If you are developing or contributing to this project, follow the setup instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md instead.

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Step 2: Configure storage (optional)

All persistent data (model weights and tool environments) is cached under the PROTO_HOME directory on first use (defaults to ~/.proto/). To customize the storage location, you can specify a path via the following environment variable:
bash
For shared filesystems, model weights can be reused to avoid downloading duplicate copies. The PROTO_MODEL_CACHE environment variable lets you point just the weights at that shared location (sharing tool environments is not recommended): export PROTO_MODEL_CACHE=/path/to/shared/weights. See Storage guide for all details and options.

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Step 3: Gated model access (optional)

A few tools use gated models or software that require accepting a license / terms-of-use first (e.g. ESM3, AlphaGenome, X3DNA). See notes/gated-models.md for the full list and per-model access steps.

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Step 4: Remote compute (optional) Modal

proto-tools enables users to scale their tool use beyond their local machine through an integration with Modal, a serverless compute platform that allows users to execute models and tools in remote containers. To learn more about setting up Modal, see proto_tools/modal/README.md for instructions related to account setup, deploying a tool, and costs, or the Cloud Inference guide for a runnable walkthrough.
You’re all set up! Start with the quickstart, then check out the rest of the guides — short notebooks covering tool environments, persistent execution, device management, parallel multi-GPU runs, and remote execution.
You’re all set! Head over to the Quickstart to run your first tool, or browse the tool catalog to see what’s available.