Google ADK at a glance

Google's Agent Development Kit, with SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go, Java and Kotlin and evaluation built into the core. It is Gemini-first but reaches other models through adapters, and deploys to Agent Runtime on Google Cloud.

Best for: Teams working across several languages that want Gemini-first agents, built-in evals and a direct route to Google Cloud.

Key facts

Maintainer

Google

Languages

Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, Kotlin

Licence

Apache-2.0

Latest version

Python 2.10.0 · September 25, 2026

Repository

google/adk-python · 21,687 stars

Hosted option

Agent Runtime on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI Agent Engine); also Cloud Run, GKE

Agent Runtime was formerly Vertex AI Agent Engine; the deploy call is still client.agent_engines.create(...).

Quickstart

Install the package, set the credentials, then run the smallest agent from the official docs. Model IDs are the ones the docs use and may not be enabled on your account.

Python

pip install google-adk && adk create my_agent  (run with: adk run my_agent  or  adk web --port 8000)

Needs GOOGLE_API_KEY in my_agent/.env

from google.adk.agents.llm_agent import Agent

# Mock tool implementation
def get_current_time(city: str) -> dict:
    """Returns the current time in a specified city."""
    return {"status": "success", "city": city, "time": "10:30 AM"}

root_agent = Agent(
    model='gemini-flash-latest',
    name='root_agent',
    description="Tells the current time in a specified city.",
    instruction="You are a helpful assistant that tells the current time in cities. Use the 'get_current_time' tool for this purpose.",
    tools=[get_current_time],
)

Quickstart source

TypeScript

npm install @google/adk (inferred from package name; not copied from docs)

Needs GOOGLE_API_KEY

import { LlmAgent, GOOGLE_SEARCH } from '@google/adk';

const agent = new LlmAgent({
  name: 'researcher',
  model: 'gemini-flash-latest',
  instruction: 'You help users research topics thoroughly.',
  tools: [GOOGLE_SEARCH],
});

Quickstart source

Features

Recent changes

• ADK 2.0 added graph-based workflows.
• A Kotlin SDK joined Python, TypeScript, Go and Java.
• The docs moved to adk.dev.
• Vertex AI Agent Engine was renamed Agent Runtime on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.

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