# banks > A prompt programming language - **URL**: https://www.freshcrate.ai/projects/banks - **Author**: pypi - **Category**: RAG & Memory - **Latest version**: `main@2026-04-27` (2026-04-27) - **License**: Unknown - **Source**: https://github.com/masci/banks#readme - **Homepage**: https://pypi.org/project/banks/ - **Language**: Python - **GitHub**: 125 stars, 20 forks - **Registry**: pypi (`banks`) - **Tags**: `pypi` ## Description # banks [![PyPI - Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/banks.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/banks) [![PyPI - Python Version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/banks.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/banks) [![Coverage Status](https://coveralls.io/repos/github/masci/banks/badge.svg?branch=main)](https://coveralls.io/github/masci/banks?branch=main) [![PyPI Release](https://github.com/masci/banks/actions/workflows/release.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/masci/banks/actions/workflows/release.yml) [![test](https://github.com/masci/banks/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/masci/banks/actions/workflows/test.yml) [![docs](https://github.com/masci/banks/actions/workflows/docs.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/masci/banks/actions/workflows/docs.yml) [![Hatch project](https://img.shields.io/badge/%F0%9F%A5%9A-Hatch-4051b5.svg)](https://github.com/pypa/hatch) [![Ruff](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/astral-sh/ruff/main/assets/badge/v2.json)](https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff) [![Checked with mypy](https://www.mypy-lang.org/static/mypy_badge.svg)](https://mypy-lang.org/) [![License - MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-9400d3.svg)](https://spdx.org/licenses/) [Banks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)) is the linguist professor who will help you generate meaningful LLM prompts using a template language that makes sense. If you're still using `f-strings` for the job, keep reading. Docs are available [here](https://masci.github.io/banks/). ![Banks Logo](./assets/banks.png) ----- **Table of Contents** - [banks](#banks) - [Installation](#installation) - [Features](#features) - [Cookbook](#cookbook) - [Examples](#examples) - [:point\_right: Render a prompt template as chat messages](#point_right-render-a-prompt-template-as-chat-messages) - [:point\_right: Add images to the prompt for vision models](#point_right-add-images-to-the-prompt-for-vision-models) - [:point\_right: Use a LLM to generate a text while rendering a prompt](#point_right-use-a-llm-to-generate-a-text-while-rendering-a-prompt) - [:point\_right: Function calling directly from the prompt](#point_right-function-calling-directly-from-the-prompt) - [:point\_right: Use prompt caching from Anthropic](#point_right-use-prompt-caching-from-anthropic) - [Reuse templates from registries](#reuse-templates-from-registries) - [Async support](#async-support) - [Contributing](#contributing) - [License](#license) ## Installation ```console pip install banks # install optional deps; litellm, redis pip install "banks[all]" ``` ## Features Prompts are instrumental for the success of any LLM application, and Banks focuses around specific areas of their lifecycle: - :orange_book: **Templating**: Banks provides tools and functions to build prompts text and chat messages from generic blueprints. - :tickets: **Versioning and metadata**: Banks supports attaching metadata to prompts to ease their management, and versioning is first-class citizen. - :file_cabinet: **Management**: Banks provides ways to store prompts on disk along with their metadata. ## Cookbook - :blue_book: [In-prompt chat completion](./cookbook/in_prompt_completion.ipynb) - :blue_book: [Prompt caching with Anthropic](./cookbook/Prompt_Caching_with_Anthropic.ipynb) - :blue_book: [Prompt versioning](./cookbook/Prompt_Versioning.ipynb) ## Examples For a more extensive set of code examples, [see the documentation page](https://masci.github.io/banks/examples/). ### :point_right: Render a prompt template as chat messages You'll find yourself feeding an LLM a list of chat messages instead of plain text more often than not. Banks will help you remove the boilerplate by defining the messages already at the prompt level. ```py from banks import Prompt prompt_template = """ {% chat role="system" %} You are a {{ persona }}. {% endchat %} {% chat role="user" %} Hello, how are you? {% endchat %} """ p = Prompt(prompt_template) print(p.chat_messages({"persona": "helpful assistant"})) # Output: # [ # ChatMessage(role='system', content=[ # ContentBlock(type=, cache_control=None, text='You are a helpful assistant.', # image_url=None, input_audio=None, input_video=None, input_document=None) # ], tool_call_id=None, name=None), # ChatMessage(role='user', content=[ # ContentBlock(type=, cache_control=None, text='Hello, how are you?', # image_url=None, input_audio=None, input_video=None, input_document=None) # ], tool_call_id=None, name=None) # ] ``` ### :point_right: Add images to the prompt for vision models If you're working with a multimodal model, you can include images directly in the prompt, and Banks will do the job needed to upload them when rendering the chat messages: ```py import litellm from banks import Prompt prompt_template = """ {% chat role="user" %} Gues ## Recent releases | Version | Date | Urgency | Changes | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `main@2026-04-27` | 2026-04-27 | High | Latest activity on main branch | | `2.4.1` | 2026-04-21 | Low | Imported from PyPI (2.4.1) | | `main@2026-03-09` | 2026-03-09 | Low | Latest activity on main branch | | `main@2026-03-09` | 2026-03-09 | Low | Latest activity on main branch | | `main@2026-03-09` | 2026-03-09 | Low | Latest activity on main branch | | `v2.4.1` | 2026-02-17 | Low | ## What's Changed * CI: explicitly ignore missing stubs for griffe by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/72 * fix: add back support for Python 3.9 by @yuqi1129 in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/71 ## New Contributors * @yuqi1129 made their first contribution in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/71 **Full Changelog**: https://github.com/masci/banks/compare/v2.4.0...v2.4.1 | | `v2.4.0` | 2026-02-06 | Low | ## What's Changed * Support binary inputs to Image, Audio, Video, and Document types by @bschloss in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/67 * docs: move AI guidance to AGENTS.md for tool-agnostic access by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/69 **Full Changelog**: https://github.com/masci/banks/compare/v2.3.0...v2.4.0 | | `v2.3.0` | 2026-01-21 | Low | ## What's Changed * fix typing and linting with latest Python by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/62 * add support for audio URL by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/63 * Stop testing on Python 3.9, introduce Python 3.14 by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/64 * feat: Support Documents by @bschloss in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/66 * feat: Support Video by @bschloss in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/65 ## New Contributors * @bschloss made their | | `v2.2.0` | 2025-07-18 | Low | ## What's Changed * feat: implement XML filter for Pydantic/dictionary/deserializable string by @AstraBert in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/59 * fix: add support for base64 URLs to the image filter by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/60 **Full Changelog**: https://github.com/masci/banks/compare/v2.1.3...v2.2.0 | | `v2.1.3` | 2025-06-27 | Low | ## What's Changed * fix: populate template path when reading the directory index by @masci in https://github.com/masci/banks/pull/57 **Full Changelog**: https://github.com/masci/banks/compare/v2.1.2...v2.1.3 | ## Dependency audit - **Score**: 77/100 - **Total deps**: 9 - **Resolved**: 3 - **Unresolved**: 6 - **License conflicts**: 0 - **Warnings**: 5 - **Scanned**: 2026-05-25 ## Citation - HTML: https://www.freshcrate.ai/projects/banks - Markdown: https://www.freshcrate.ai/projects/banks.md - Dependencies JSON: https://www.freshcrate.ai/api/projects/banks/deps _Generated by freshcrate.ai. Indexes pypi releases for AI-agent ecosystem packages._