metalworks

metalworks turns a startup idea into a launch plan, grounded in real demand. Give it one sentence about what you want to build. It reads real conversations — Reddit, Hacker News, the web, or your own data — to tell you whether people actually want it, then turns that into the things you need to launch: your positioning, the competitors to beat, a design system, a build plan for your coding agent, and launch copy. Every claim links back to a real quote you can click — nothing is invented. It’s a Python library you install (also a CLI, an MCP server, and a Claude Code plugin).

Your first report

Install metalworks with a provider SDK, and set one key — any provider works (embeddings default to a local model, so there’s no second key to set):

pip install "metalworks[research,openai]"     # or [research,google], [research,anthropic]
export OPENAI_API_KEY=...                      # or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY / GOOGLE_API_KEY

Or run keyless on your Claude Code login — no key at all (the chat model and web search use your Claude Code session):

pip install "metalworks[research,claude-code]"   # then just run; nothing to export

/demand-report an affordable, jitter-free focus supplement for developers

from metalworks import Metalworks

mw = Metalworks()                  # provider inferred from your env key
research = mw.research(
    "an affordable, jitter-free focus supplement for developers",
    subreddits=["Nootropics", "Supplements"],
)
report = research.demand           # .research() returns a report

print(report.demand_summary)       # how strong is the demand? a one-line summary
for cluster in report.ranked_clusters:
    print(cluster.distinct_author_count, "people:", cluster.claim)
    for quote in cluster.quotes:   # the real comments behind it — nothing invented
        print("  ", quote.source_url)

That’s a real report grounded in real conversations you can open — see the full Quickstart.

What you can do with it

Run demand research once, then turn that one report into whatever you need next. The work falls into five stages — each step is a single call:

Stage	What you get
Research	Demand research — a read on how strong the demand is + the real needs people voiced, each backed by quotes. Run the full validation loop — frame an idea, weigh demand against what already exists, get a GO / PIVOT / NO-GO call — then your positioning (who it’s for, why it’s different) and the competitors to beat.
Design	A design system — an aesthetic direction and a SAFE/RISK choice per dimension, read from what rivals actually do.
Build	A build spec — what to build (surface + screens), a feature plan mapped to real demand, and a project scaffold your coding agent executes.
Distribute	Distribution — test→focus channel experiments, channel-shaped drafts, and a corpus-derived data report, each line backed by a quote (it never posts) — plus GEO / LLM-citability: the real threads to join and answer-first briefs so people and AI search cite you.
Grow	Reddit engagement — find threads to join and draft honest replies (you approve every post).

New here? Walk one idea from start to finish in the end-to-end walkthrough.

Why it’s not just another AI tool

Most AI research tools make up plausible-sounding answers. metalworks doesn’t. It reads real conversations across real sources, and anything it can’t back with an actual quote, it drops. When the demand isn’t there, it tells you — instead of inventing an opportunity. That’s what makes the output safe to act on. See why you can trust the output.

Four ways to use it

The same engine, whichever fits your workflow:

Python library — from metalworks import Metalworks. The full toolkit, embeddable. → SDK reference
CLI — metalworks research run --question "...", then metalworks build init, etc. → CLI
MCP server — metalworks mcp serve. Drive it from any MCP-aware agent or app. → MCP tools
Claude Code plugin — /demand-report, /build-spec, and more as slash commands. → Claude Code plugin

The docs are split to match: Documentation (this section, the workflow end to end), Claude Code & plugins (the slash commands), and the SDK reference (the Python API and how to extend it).

Install

pip install "metalworks[research]"     # the demand-research pipeline

Need only the data tools, or want to keep it lean? See Installation for the full options. metalworks is open source (MIT) on GitHub.

Get started

Build a startup

Your project

Research

Design

Build

Distribution

How it works

Your first report

What you can do with it

Why it’s not just another AI tool

Four ways to use it

Install

​Your first report

​What you can do with it

​Why it’s not just another AI tool

​Four ways to use it

​Install

Your first report

What you can do with it

Why it’s not just another AI tool

Four ways to use it

Install