OpenHands Software Agent SDK

Hi everyone — Robert here 👋

Today we’re excited to share something we’ve been working toward for a long time: the OpenHands Software Agent SDK, a fully open-source, MIT-licensed framework for building real, production-grade software agents.

For years, I’ve watched AI make huge strides in code generation — but very little progress in the actual workflows developers deal with every day. Writing code is only a small fraction of software engineering. The real work is everything around it: editing files safely, refactoring at scale, running commands, interpreting test failures, managing tools, keeping docs up to date, and handling the never-ending maintenance of modern codebases.

We built the Software Agent SDK because developers deserve tools that go beyond autocomplete and demos. We wanted a framework that treats AI agents as real participants in the software development lifecycle — with structure, safety, observability, and clear boundaries.

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🌟 What the SDK Does

The OpenHands Software Agent SDK lets you build agents that can:

- Edit files with diff-based precision
- Run shell commands safely
- Execute tests and analyze results
- Perform structured refactors
- Apply domain-specific tools and custom workflows
- Operate locally or inside isolated sandboxes
- Use any LLM — open source or proprietary

This isn’t a toy agent loop. It’s a composable framework designed for production reliability, with:

- A clear agent lifecycle (observe → plan → act → reflect)
- Extensible tool interfaces
- Strong workspace abstractions
- Execution safety controls
- A Python API that’s simple to adopt but powerful to extend

Most importantly: the entire SDK is MIT-licensed and fully open-source.

No lock-in. No black boxes. You can inspect everything, fork it, build on it, or run it however you want.

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💡 Why We Built It

Most agent tools today are impressive demos — but they fall apart when you try applying them to real repos. They lack tooling, guardrails, customization, or the ability to run safely in production environments.

We needed a framework that:

- Developers can trust
- Teams can deploy
- Enterprises can secure
- The community can extend and evolve

So we designed the Software Agent SDK to be the foundation that anyone — from indie hackers to enterprises — can use to create durable, reliable agent workflows.

Open source and MIT-licensed was a non-negotiable part of that vision.

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🔧 Who the SDK Is For

- Engineers exploring AI-powered automation
- Teams looking to reduce repetitive development work
- Researchers studying autonomous coding systems
- Open-source builders creating new agent workflows
- Startups building custom in-house engineering bots

If you’ve ever thought “AI writes code but doesn’t help maintain my codebase,” that’s exactly the gap the SDK fills.

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🙏 Thanks Product Hunt

We built this SDK for developers — and we’re launching it here because this community helps shape the future of developer tools.

We’ll be here all day answering questions, sharing examples, and helping anyone who wants to build with the SDK. If you try it, we’d love your feedback, ideas, and contributions.

Thanks for supporting open-source dev tools — and for helping us push forward what software agents can do.

— Robert Brennan

Founder & CEO, OpenHands

Really happy to see OpenHands launch here....

I've contributed to the repo and had a few PRs merged, and honestly it's been a great experience. The codebase is clean and the maintainers are very supportive and thoughtful.

This SDK solves real problems developers face every day. I'd love to keep contributing and would be excited to be more involved with the project as it grows

Congrats on the launch!