Architecture overview

Understanding the Slide framework architecture

Slide Architecture

Slide is designed as a collection of modular packages that work seamlessly together while remaining independent. This architecture provides flexibility and allows you to use only what you need.

Core Components

Tyler - The Agent Core

Tyler is the heart of Slide, providing:

• Agent orchestration and LLM integration
• Tool execution framework
• Streaming and async support
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) compatibility
• Evaluation and testing framework

Lye - The Tool Library

Lye provides ready-to-use tools organized by capability:

• Web Tools: Search, fetch, scrape
• Image Tools: Analyze, extract text, process
• Audio Tools: Transcribe, text-to-speech
• File Tools: Read, write, manipulate
• Browser Tools: Screenshots, extraction

Narrator - The Persistence Layer

Narrator handles conversation and file persistence:

• Thread management (conversation history)
• File storage for attachments
• Support for multiple backends:
  • In-memory (testing)
  • SQLite (local development)
  • PostgreSQL (production)

Space Monkey - The Slack Bridge

Space Monkey enables Slack deployment:

• Event handling and routing
• Message formatting
• Thread management
• File handling

How Components Work Together

# Tyler provides the agent
from tyler import Agent, Thread, Message

# Lye provides tools
from lye import WEB_TOOLS, IMAGE_TOOLS

# Narrator provides persistence
from tyler import ThreadStore, FileStore

# They work together seamlessly
thread_store = await ThreadStore.create("sqlite+aiosqlite:///db.sqlite")
file_store = await FileStore.create("./files")

agent = Agent(
    name="my-agent",
    model_name="gpt-4",
    tools=[*WEB_TOOLS, *IMAGE_TOOLS],
    thread_store=thread_store,
    file_store=file_store
)

Design Principles

1. Modularity

Each package is independent and can be used separately:

• Use Tyler alone for simple agents
• Use Lye in any Python project for tool utilities
• Use Narrator for any conversation management needs

2. Composability

Components are designed to work together:

• Tyler + Lye = Powerful agents with tools
• Tyler + Narrator = Agents with conversation persistence
• All together = Production-ready AI systems

3. Extensibility

Every component is designed for extension:

• Create custom tools
• Add new storage backends
• Integrate with any LLM provider
• Connect to MCP servers

4. Production-Ready

Built with real-world use in mind:

• Comprehensive error handling
• Structured logging
• Testing frameworks
• Performance optimization

Data Flow

When to Use Each Component

Just Tyler

Perfect for:

• Simple conversational agents
• Prototyping and experiments
• Custom tool implementations

Tyler + Lye

Ideal for:

• Agents that interact with external systems
• Research and analysis tasks
• Automation workflows

Tyler + Narrator

Best for:

• Customer service bots
• Long-running conversations
• Applications needing context persistence

Tyler + Lye + Narrator

Recommended for:

• Production applications
• Complex agent systems
• Multi-user environments

Space Monkey

Use when:

• Deploying to Slack
• Building team collaboration tools
• Integrating with existing Slack workflows

Next steps

How Agents Work

Deep dive into agent internals

Tool System

Learn about the tool architecture