Last weekend, I decided to tackle a project that had been on my mind for a while: integrating AI capabilities directly into my Spacemacs environment. The result was Fabric.el, a wrapper around Fabric that supercharges text work with AI-driven patterns. Here’s how I did it.

The Idea

The idea was simple: bring the power of AI directly into Spacemacs. Having tried various Chat GPT integrations, none of which seemed to align with the way I wanted to use LLMs, I was very glad that I came across fabric I wanted to make it easy to apply AI patterns to text, whether it was an entire buffer or just a selected region. The goal was to enhance workflow efficiency by making advanced AI tools more accessible.

Getting Started

I started by cloning installing the Fabric AI repository. Fabric AI is an impressive tool that allows you to apply various AI patterns to text. My task was to create a seamless integration with Spacemacs, so users could leverage these capabilities without leaving their editor.

git clone https://github.com/danielmiessler/fabric.git

With the Fabric AI code in hand, I began writing the wrapper. It is just a simple wrapper around the CLI interface provided by fabric, you can clone it from here and them simply load the lisp file into your configuration:

(load "/path/to/fabric.el/fabric.el")

Key Features

The core features of Fabric.el are straightforward but powerful:

• AI Integration: Directly integrates with Fabric AI, bringing advanced AI capabilities to your fingertips.

• Effortless Pattern Application: Apply AI patterns to your entire buffer or just a selected region with ease.

• Workflow Efficiency: Custom keybindings designed for Spacemacs enhance your workflow, making AI tools more accessible than ever.

Building the Integration

The integration itself was built around a few key functions. The most important were fabric-run-pattern-on-buffer and fabric-run-pattern-on-region. These functions allow users to apply AI patterns to either the entire buffer or a specific region of text.

Here’s a simplified version of what these functions look like:

(defun fabric-run-pattern-on-buffer ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((content (buffer-string)))
    (fabric-apply-pattern content)))

(defun fabric-run-pattern-on-region (start end)
  (interactive "r")
  (let ((content (buffer-substring start end)))
    (fabric-apply-pattern content)))

These functions call fabric-apply-pattern, which sends the text to Fabric AI and returns the transformed content. The transformed content is then displayed in a separate buffer, ensuring that the original text remains untouched.

Example Use-Case

Imagine you’re working on a large text file and want to enhance its content using an AI pattern. With Fabric.el, you can simply write your prompt into a buffer or highlight a region you want to send to the LLM. Then, use fabric-run-pattern-on-buffer or fabric-run-pattern-on-region to apply the selected pattern (or use the keybindings). Fabric AI transforms your content, all within your Spacemacs environment. One of my favorite use-cases so far is writing email and working with daily text messages and other common text modalities.

Contributing

One of the best parts of working on open-source projects is the community. I welcome contributions from everyone! If you’re interested in improving Fabric.el or adding new features, please fork the repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request. Let’s make Fabric.el even better together.

Final Thoughts

Building Fabric.el over a weekend was a rewarding experience. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish with a clear goal and a bit of determination. If you’re a Spacemacs user looking to enhance your workflow with AI, give Fabric.el a try. It might just take your productivity to new heights.