February 6, 2026

Now for something completely faster?

Monty: A minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust for use by AI

Tiny “safe Python” for AI drops—fans cheer, skeptics question speed and security

TLDR: Monty is a tiny, safety-focused Python-like tool for AI code snippets, promising super-fast startup and secure sandboxes. The community’s split: skeptics question the speed claims and security boundaries, while others want entirely new strict languages; a web demo exists, but it’s missing class support, fueling more debate.

Monty just landed: a miniature, safety-first take on Python built in Rust, designed so AI assistants can run tiny bits of code fast and (supposedly) safely. The pitch? Blink-and-you-missed-it startup times and a locked-down sandbox. The vibe? A split crowd. One camp is hyped for a lightweight tool that doesn’t drag a full programming kitchen sink into AI land. The other camp is already sharpening knives over speed claims and the actual safety wall.

Speed drama kicked off with a reality check: zahlman pointed out that even simple tools can take milliseconds to spin up, throwing shade on those dreamy “microseconds” promises. On the flip side, people love the minimalism—less baggage for agents, more snappy vibes. Then came the security showdown: dmpetrov asked where the hard line really is—can an AI-powered code snippet truly not escape and mess with your computer? That question set off nervous laughter in the thread.

The biggest philosophical brawl: kodablah argued we should ditch old languages entirely and give AI a stricter, simpler dialect instead of baby-proofing Python. Meanwhile, simonw shipped a WebAssembly demo, but no classes yet—which sparked jokes that AI won’t miss them anyhow. And yes, the name is a hit: _joel dropped the classic Monty Python line, because of course he did. The community came for the interpreter, stayed for the punchlines—and left debating whether Monty is genius minimalism or just a well-branded speed fantasy.

Key Points

  • Monty is a minimal, secure Python interpreter implemented in Rust.
  • The interpreter is intended for use by AI, as stated in the repository description.
  • The project is open-source under the MIT license.
  • The repository shows active development with 255 commits and includes directories such as crates, examples, and scripts.
  • The project is hosted on GitHub under the Pydantic organization.

Hottest takes

“even a do-nothing `uv` invocation takes ~10ms on my system.” — zahlman
“better to construct more strict/structured languages for AI use than to reuse existing ones.” — kodablah
“can it avoid ‘breaking out’ into the host env in practice?” — dmpetrov
Made with <3 by @siedrix and @shesho from CDMX. Powered by Forge&Hive.