Agent SDK
Also written: Agent Software Development Kit, Claude Agent SDK, Agent Development Kit, ADK
Software Development Kit for building AI agents that can perform tasks and integrate into applications.
An Agent SDK is a set of tools that helps developers build AI assistants, often called agents. These agents can understand instructions and perform specific tasks, like answering questions or managing information.
Think of it like a toolkit for creating a specialized helper. For example, a developer could use an Agent SDK to build an AI assistant that helps manage a company's customer support tickets by understanding new requests and routing them to the right team.
An Agent SDK (Software Development Kit) provides developers with the libraries, interfaces, and tools necessary to create, deploy, and manage AI agents. These agents are designed to perform autonomous or semi-autonomous tasks, often by interacting with external tools or data sources. The SDK abstracts away much of the underlying complexity of AI model interaction, enabling developers to focus on defining agent behavior, state management, and integration into larger applications or workflows. Tradeoffs often involve the level of abstraction versus control, and the specific capabilities exposed by the SDK.
Companies like Google and Anthropic are releasing and updating their Agent SDKs to make it easier for developers to build AI agents. These SDKs provide tools and libraries for creating agents that can perform specific tasks, interact with users through voice, and integrate custom capabilities or dynamic workflows.
- Three layers, one repo: a tour of google/adk-recipesGoogle · Google Developers Blog ·
- Optimizing a 200,000-line Python codebase overnight with Gemini 4 ArgonGoogle · Google Developers Blog ·
- Give your voice AI agent real abilities (tool calling)Google · Google Cloud Tech on YouTube ·
- Build a real-time voice AI agent with Google ADK and Gemini Live APIGoogle · Google Cloud Tech on YouTube ·
- How to Evaluate Live & Voice Agents in ADKGoogle · Google Developers Blog ·
- Anthropic Cookbook: Add the dynamic workflows cookbook to the Agent SDK series (#806)Anthropic · Anthropic Cookbook ·
- Introducing Agent SkillsAnthropic · Anthropic News ·
- An update on recent Claude Code quality reportsAnthropic · Anthropic Engineering ·
- Cognizant will make Claude available to 350,000 employees, accelerating enterprise AI adoption and internal transformationAnthropic · Anthropic News ·
- Anthropic Claude
- Anthropic's Agent SDK includes cookbooks for building dynamic workflows and supports Agent Skills for specialized tasks.
- Google Gemini
- Google Gemini offers an Agent SDK (also called ADK) that streamlines AI agent creation, supports tool calling for voice agents, and enables real-time voice interactions.
- LLM API
- An LLM API provides direct access to a language model's capabilities, w
- Framework
- A framework offers a broader structure for application development, w
The term "SDK" originated in software development as a way to package tools for building applications. "Agent SDK" applies this concept to the development of AI agents, a term that has roots in AI research dating back decades, gaining modern prominence with advancements in large language models. Source ↗
Explore Anthropic's documentation for their Agent SDK. Look for examples of how to define tools or functions that Claude can use. Try to imagine a simple task, like summarizing a short piece of text, and consider how you would instruct an AI agent to perform it using the SDK's concepts.
The Playbook: reusable how-tos, prompts, configs and tips pulled out of the news.
- Eval methodAutomated scoring of voice agent audio responses and tool executionsDefine evaluation scenarios and rubrics to automatically score voice agent audio responses and tool executions. · 15 min
- ToolGoogle Gemini for real-time voice AI agents with tool callingEnables voice AI agents to take actions mid-conversation without breaking the flow using the Agent Development Kit. · 30 min
- PromptRole-play a student struggling with math for AI tutor simulationSimulate a student's math struggles and uncertainty for AI tutor evaluation. · 5 min
- TemplateReusable workflow templates for healthcare teamsTeams can create and share templates for common workflows like documentation or prior authorizations. · 15 min
- TemplateTemplate for building an AI tool tailored to your workA structured approach to defining and building a custom AI tool for specific business needs. · 15 min
Questions people ask
- What is an AI agent?
- An AI agent is a program designed to perform tasks autonomously or semi-autonomously, often by interacting with its environment or using tools to achieve a goal.
- How is an Agent SDK different from a regular API?
- An Agent SDK provides a higher level of abstraction and specialized tools for building AI agents, often including features for tool integration and agent orchestration, beyond the basic input/output of a standard API.
First seen on Subvolts Nov 6, 2025. Updated Oct 15, 2026. Written by an AI model from the items above and reviewed against them weekly; report an error.