An Illustrated Guide to AI Agents

Welcome! Here, you will find the code for the book An Illustrated Guide to AI Agents written by Maarten Grootendorst and Jay Alammar. In this repository, you will:

"Build an Agent From Scratch!"

You will build your own Agentic Framework from the ground up in pure Python!

Through the visually educational nature of this book and with more than 300 custom made figures, learn the practical tools and concepts you need to use AI Agents today!

The book is available on:

• Amazon
• Shroff Publishers (India)
• O'Reilly
• Kindle
• Barnes and Noble
• Goodreads

Table of Contents - Build a TinyAgent from Scratch!

The code examples in this repo are used for you to start building a TinyAgent entirely from scratch, using nothing more than LLM calls. You will learn how to create your own Agent that has memory, tools, and autonomy!

All examples can be run in Google Colab for free using their T4 GPU. You have options for running everything either locally or on the cloud without any additional costs involved.

Chapter	Notebook
Chapter 1: Introduction to AI Agents
Chapter 2: Large Language Models
Chapter 3: Reasoning Large Language Models
Chapter 4: Memory
Chapter 5: Tools
Chapter 6: Planning
Chapter 7: Evaluation
Chapter 8: Multi-Agent Collaboration
Chapter 9: Multimodal Understanding
Chapter 10: Coding Agents

[!TIP] You can check the setup folder for a quick-start guide to install all packages locally.

Reviews

TBA

A Unique Way of Learning

We wanted to do something special this time around and allow readers to Build an Agent From Scratch! However, we did not stop there and wanted the act of building the Agent to be a modular experience that enhances the learning experience. By iteratively adding components, one at a time, it becomes much more intuitive how an Agent actually works.

We decided to combine this with creative (if we say so ourselves) ways to explain what is happening and how each added component affects your TinyAgent!

Citation

Please consider citing the book if you consider it useful for your research:

@book{illustrated-agents-book,
  author       = {Maarten Grootendorst and Jay Alammar},
  title        = {An Illustrated Guide to AI Agents},
  publisher    = {O'Reilly},
  year         = {2026},
  isbn         = {},
  url          = {https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/an-illustrated-guide/9798341662681/},
  github       = {}
}