Install it and make an agent

One install, and an agent is an object you can print. Nothing runs when you make one, which is worth seeing before anything else.

pip install google-adk

Python 3.10 or later. A virtual environment is the usual advice and it applies here, because ADK brings a web server and a lot of integrations with it.

An agent, made but not run

agent = LlmAgent(
    name="support",
    model="gemini-flash-latest",
    description="Answers questions about orders.",
    instruction="Help customers with their orders.",
    tools=[lookup_order],
)

print("name: ", agent.name)
print("model:", agent.model)
print("tools:", [t.__name__ for t in agent.tools])

Nothing was sent anywhere. Creating an agent builds a description of one: a name, a model to use, an instruction, and the functions it may call. The model string is not checked until something actually runs.

The four fields worth knowing on day one

The difference between description and instruction catches everybody once. The instruction is for the model doing the work. The description is for whoever is deciding which agent should do it, which becomes lesson 16.

The project layout ADK expects

There is a command that makes one for you, and it is worth running once to see the shape.

adk create my_agent

my_agent/
    agent.py      # the agent, in a variable called root_agent
    .env          # API keys or project ids
    __init__.py

The only thing ADK requires is a variable named root_agent in agent.py. That is what the command line tools and the dev UI look for, which is lesson 24.