What is Glove?

Glove is an open-source TypeScript framework for building AI-powered applications. Instead of wiring up pages, routes, and navigation manually, you describe what your app can do — and an AI figures out when to do it, based on what users ask for.

The core idea

Traditional apps encode user flows in UI: click this button, go to this page, fill out this form. Glove replaces that wiring with a conversation. The user says what they want, and an AI decides which capabilities to use.

This means three things for you as a developer:

1. You define capabilities (called tools)
2. You define how results look (called renderers)
3. The AI handles navigation, flow, and orchestration

Key terms

These are the building blocks of every Glove app. You'll see them throughout the docs:

• Agent — An AI that reads what the user asks for and decides which tools to call. Think of it as a smart coordinator that replaces your router and navigation logic.
• Tool — A single capability your app exposes. “Search products,” “get weather,” “submit order” are all tools. Each has a name (so the AI knows what it does), an input schema (so inputs are validated), and a function that runs when called.
• Display stack — A stack of UI components that tools push onto. When a tool runs, it can show the user a product grid, a form, a confirmation dialog — anything.
• pushAndWait — Push a UI component and pause the tool until the user responds. Used for forms, confirmations, and choices where the tool needs user input before continuing.
• pushAndForget — Push a UI component but keep the tool running. Used for displaying data, status updates, and results where the tool doesn't need to wait.
• Renderer — A React component that renders one entry on the display stack. You define it alongside the tool, so the tool and its UI live together.
• Adapter — A pluggable interface. Glove uses adapters for the AI model, data storage, UI state, and event observation. Swap OpenAI for Anthropic (or anything else) without changing your app code.

How it works

1. A user sends a message (like “Find me running shoes under $100”)
2. The AI reads your list of tools and picks the right ones to call
3. Tools execute — searching a database, calling an API, computing a result
4. Tools can push UI onto the display stack — product grids, forms, confirmation dialogs
5. The AI reads tool results and either responds to the user or calls more tools
6. This loop continues until the user's request is fulfilled

What can you build?

• Shopping assistant — tools for product search, cart management, checkout with payment confirmation
• Customer support bot — tools for searching docs, creating tickets, escalating to humans
• Internal dashboard — tools for querying databases, generating reports, running scripts with approval
• Onboarding flow — tools for collecting user info, setting preferences, configuring accounts

Which packages do I need?

• glove-react — React hooks and components. Start here if you're building a React/Next.js app. Includes glove-core as a dependency.
• glove-next — One-line server handler for Next.js API routes. Connects to OpenAI, Anthropic, and other providers.
• glove-core — The runtime engine. Agent loop, tool execution, display manager. You rarely import this directly — glove-react re-exports what you need.

Most projects need just two packages: glove-react and glove-next.

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