Agentic AI SDK

A production-ready SDK for building AI agents with planning, workspace management, artifact persistence, and observability. Built on top of Microsoft Agent Framework.

Overview

Agentic AI SDK supports three development modes:

Mode	Use Case	Requirements
Declarative Assembly	Assemble existing Tools via YAML (no code)	Docker or Python + SDK
Tool Development	Extend with new Python tools	Python 3.10+
Pro-Code Agent	Full programmatic control	Python + SDK APIs

Installation

# Basic installation
pip install agentic-ai-sdk

# With AG-UI protocol support (for web UI integration)
pip install agentic-ai-sdk[ag-ui]

# With observability (OpenTelemetry)
pip install agentic-ai-sdk[observability]

# All features
pip install agentic-ai-sdk[all]

Quick Start

Option 1: Docker Launch (Recommended, Zero Dependencies)

# Start Agent service with a single command
docker run -p 8000:8000 \
  -v $(pwd)/env.yaml:/app/env.yaml \
  -v $(pwd)/agent_teams:/app/agent_teams \
  agentic-analyst:latest

# Start frontend Web UI
docker run -p 3000:3000 \
  -e AGENT_BACKEND_URL=http://host.docker.internal:8000/ \
  agentic-ai-web-default:latest

# Access: http://localhost:3000/agentic-ai

Option 2: CLI Launch (For Developers)

# Interactive terminal mode
agentic-ai run --agent my_agent --config env.yaml

# AG-UI server mode (for frontend integration)
agentic-ai serve --port 8000

Option 3: Programmatic Usage

from agentic_ai import (
    build_agent,
    create_workspace,
    create_llm_factory_from_list,
)
from agent_framework import AIFunction

# Define tools
@AIFunction
def get_weather(city: str) -> str:
    """Get weather for a city."""
    return f"The weather in {city} is sunny, 22°C."

# Create LLM factory
llm_factory = create_llm_factory_from_list([{
    "name": "default",
    "provider": "azure_openai",
    "model": "gpt-4o",
    "endpoint": "https://your-endpoint.openai.azure.com",
    "api_key_env": "AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY",
}])

# Build agent
workspace = create_workspace(".ws/my_agent")
session = build_agent(
    chat_client=llm_factory.get_client("default"),
    workspace=workspace,
    agent_id="my_agent",
    tools=[get_weather],
    instructions="You are a helpful assistant.",
    planning_enabled=True,
)

# Run agent
response = await session.run("What's the weather in Beijing?")
print(response.text)

Project Structure

my-agent-project/
├── env.yaml                    # Platform config (auth, storage, observability)
├── agent_teams/
│   └── default/                # A team (add more dirs for multi-tenant)
│       ├── agent_team.env.yaml # Per-team data source creds, UI, MCP
│       ├── agents.yaml         # Agent configuration
│       ├── tools.yaml          # Tool configuration
│       └── prompts/
│           └── my_agent.md     # System prompt
└── toolsets/                   # Tool implementations
    └── my_tools/
        └── tools.py

Declarative Configuration

Agent Configuration (agents.yaml)

version: "1.0"

agents:
  my_agent:
    llm_profile_name: "default"
    name: "My Agent"
    description: "A helpful assistant"
    max_tool_iterations: 30
    planning_enabled: true
    system_prompt_file: "prompts/my_agent.md"
    
    context_compaction:
      enabled: true
      max_messages: 80
      max_tokens: 180000
    
    tools:
      - my_tool
      - another_tool
    
    subagents:
      - sub_agent_1

Tool Configuration (tools.yaml)

version: "1.0"

defaults:
  output_policy: managed
  preview_rows: 200

tools:
  my_tool:
    function: "toolsets.my_tools.tools:my_tool"
    description: "My custom tool"
    config:
      timeout: 30
      max_results: 100

Platform and Agent-Team Configuration

# env.yaml — platform infrastructure
logging:
  level: INFO

observability:
  enabled: true
  service_name: "my-agent"

llm_profiles:
  - name: default
    provider: azure
    model: gpt-4o
    deployment: gpt-4o
    base_url: ${AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT}
    auth: azure_credential:openai

# agent_teams/default/agent_team.env.yaml — Team-owned resources
llm_profile_sets:
  default:
    slots:
      master: default

Tool Development

Creating Tools

from agent_framework import ai_function
from agentic_ai.artifacts import ToolResult, ok, error, persist
from agentic_ai.runtime import tool_handler

@ai_function(name="my_tool")
@tool_handler()  # Auto exception handling
async def my_tool(query: str) -> ToolResult:
    """My custom tool."""
    data = await fetch_data(query)
    return ok(data)

# For large data, use artifact persistence
@ai_function(name="generate_report")
@tool_handler()
async def generate_report(query: str) -> ToolResult:
    """Generate report with artifact persistence."""
    full_data = await fetch_large_dataset(query)
    preview = full_data[:50]
    
    return persist(
        data=full_data,           # Full data stored in artifact
        tool_return=preview,      # Preview returned to LLM
        summary={"total_rows": len(full_data)},
    )

Configuration Injection (No Client Factory Required)

Runtime configuration is resolved as a per-Agent-Team effective view. Values in env.yaml are inheritable platform defaults; the same sections in agent_teams/<team-id>/agent_team.env.yaml override them only for that Team. Concrete llm_profiles are a platform-owned catalog; Teams own llm_profile_sets, embedding, semantic_layer_indexer, MCP, and tool/resource connection sections. Equal set or resource-section names in different Teams do not share resolved Team configuration. LLM profile clients, authentication, observability, the memory-store backend, and the global Azure credential factory remain application-scoped by design.

memory_store.provider: file is fully durable for a single-filesystem deployment: task ownership, title, status, and Team/profile routing are atomically indexed in <workspace-root>/threads.json, while messages stay in Team-scoped workspace files. It supports task lists and history after restart. Use Cosmos for horizontally scaled production deployments.

An explicit null Team override disables an inherited optional section.

from agentic_ai.runtime import get_effective_tool_config

@ai_function(name="search_data")
@tool_handler()
async def search_data(query: str) -> ToolResult:
    """Most custom tools are plain functions and need no resource factory."""
    # Get merged config from env.yaml + tools.yaml
    config = get_effective_tool_config("my_section")
    limit = config["config"].get("limit", 10)
    results = await fetch_data(query, limit=limit)
    return ok(results)

Client Lifetimes: Prefer the Public SDK

Toolsets do not need an SDK client factory by default. Construct the official HTTP, Azure, or database client directly and let that package manage its transport, connection pool, and reconnect behavior. For clients that are cheap or already open a connection per operation, a plain function is enough:

from databricks import sql

def run_query(config, statement):
    with sql.connect(**config.connect_kwargs()) as connection:
        with connection.cursor() as cursor:
            cursor.execute(statement)
            return cursor.fetchall()

Keep a client alive only when doing so has a measured benefit, such as reusing an HTTP/TLS pool across calls. ScopedResource remains an optional lifetime bridge for declarative sessions; it does not implement another connection pool. The public client owns its transport and pooling; retries remain an explicit operation policy because not every request is safe to retry.

from agentic_ai.runtime import (
    HTTP_READ_RETRY,
    ResourceFactoryContext,
    ScopedResource,
    resolve_retry_policy,
)

def create_crm_client(context: ResourceFactoryContext):
    return CRMClient(endpoint=context.config.endpoint)

crm = ScopedResource(
    create_crm_client,
    # Optional: defaults to the factory's fully-qualified Python name.
    resource_id="my_company.crm.client",
    config_section="crm",
)

@ai_function(name="search_customer")
@tool_handler()
async def search_customer(query: str) -> ToolResult:
    results = await crm.call_async(
        lambda client: client.search(query),
        retry_policy=resolve_retry_policy(HTTP_READ_RETRY),
        recreate_on_retry=True,
    )
    return ok(results)

Agent Teams may tune an idempotent operation without changing toolset code:

tools:
  search_customer:
    function: "my_toolsets.crm.tools:search_customer"
    config_section: crm
    config:
      retry:
        max_attempts: 3
        initial_delay_seconds: 0.5
        max_delay_seconds: 8

Do not apply read retry policies to writes or other non-idempotent operations. Legacy register_client() / get_client() integrations remain supported for existing toolsets. New toolsets should not register global short client names. Use plain functions first, and a direct, namespaced ScopedResource only when cross-call reuse is actually required.

Built-in short aliases such as get_client("embedding") and get_client("databricks") are no longer registered. Existing extensions should call their public provider directly or keep their own namespaced resource handle; this prevents unrelated Agent Teams/toolsets from coupling through a process-global alias.

Sub-Agent Configuration

Sub-agents are invoked as tools by the master agent:

agents:
  sub_agent:
    llm_profile_name: "default"
    name: "Sub Agent"
    system_prompt_file: "prompts/sub_agent.md"
    tools:
      - tool_a
      - tool_b
    
    as_subagent:
      tool_name: "invoke_sub_agent"
      tool_description: "Invoke the sub-agent for specialized tasks."
      tool_parameters:
        query:
          type: string
          description: "The query to process"
          required: true
      response_handling: last_artifact  # none | parse_json | last_artifact
      auto_load_artifacts: true

Core Concepts

DeepAgentSession

The main entry point for agent interaction:

• Workspace Management: Persistent storage for artifacts and state
• Planning: Built-in task planning with update_plan tool
• Context Compaction: Automatic long conversation management
• Observability: Logging and OpenTelemetry tracing

Workspace

Each session has an isolated workspace:

.ws/{workspace_id}/
├── {agent_id}/
│   └── plan.json           # Execution plan
├── {artifact_id}/
│   ├── data.json           # Artifact data
│   └── .manifest.json      # Metadata

Artifacts

Large tool outputs are persisted as artifacts:

from agentic_ai.artifacts import persist, load_artifact

# Persist data
result = persist(data=large_data, summary={"rows": 1000})

# Load in another tool
data = load_artifact(artifact_id)

ToolResult Structure

Field	Description
status	"ok" or "error"
result	Data returned to LLM
artifact_id	Artifact ID for persisted data
summary	Metadata summary
is_preview	Whether it's preview data
error_message	Error message (when status="error")

API Reference

Package Structure

agentic_ai/
├── agent/          # Agent core (DeepAgentSession, SubAgentController)
├── config/         # Configuration (AgentConfig, BaseAppConfig)
├── runtime/        # Runtime (bootstrap, session factory, tool context)
├── middleware/     # Middleware (persistence, loader)
├── tools/          # Tool management (loader, manifest)
├── llm/            # LLM (client factory, embedding)
├── artifacts/      # Artifact storage (persist, load, ToolResult)
├── workspace/      # Workspace management
├── planning/       # Planning subsystem
├── observability/  # Logging and tracing
├── mcp/            # Model Context Protocol
├── genui/          # Generative UI (insight reports)
└── ag_ui/          # AG-UI protocol adapter

Agent Builders

Function	Description
build_agent()	Create session with chat client
build_agent_with_llm()	Create session with LLM factory
build_agent_from_config()	Create session from AgentConfig
build_agent_from_store()	Create session from config store
build_agent_session()	Low-level session builder

Artifact API

Function	Description
persist()	Persist data to artifact, return ToolResult
ok()	Create success ToolResult
error()	Create error ToolResult
load_artifact()	Load artifact data by ID
try_load_artifact()	Load artifact, return None if not found

Runtime API

Function	Description
bootstrap_runtime()	Load configs and create RuntimeContext
build_session()	Build agent session from runtime context
ctx()	Get current tool execution context
get_effective_tool_config()	Get merged tool configuration
get_client()	Get managed client instance
tool_handler()	Decorator for auto exception handling

Observability API

Function	Description
setup_logging()	Configure logging
enable_observability()	Enable OpenTelemetry tracing
get_tracer()	Get OpenTelemetry tracer
trace_http_request()	Trace HTTP requests
trace_database_query()	Trace database queries

CLI Commands

# Run agent interactively
agentic-ai run --agent <agent_id> --config <config_path>

# Start AG-UI server
agentic-ai serve --port 8000 --host 0.0.0.0

# Options
--config, -c      Config file path (default: env.yaml)
--manifest-dir    Manifest directory (default: manifest)
--workspace       Workspace root (default: .ws)
--verbose         Enable debug logging

Docker Deployment

# docker-compose.yaml
version: '3.8'
services:
  backend:
    image: agentic-analyst:latest
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    volumes:
      - ./env.yaml:/app/env.yaml
      - ./manifest:/app/manifest
      - ./.ws:/app/.ws

  web:
    image: agentic-ai-web-default:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - AGENT_BACKEND_URL=http://backend:8000/
    depends_on:
      - backend

Documentation

• Development Guide: Comprehensive development guide
• Tool Result Control: Artifact and result handling

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.