go-adk
Expert guidance for developing agents with google.golang.org/adk (Go ADK).
When to trigger
- The user mentions Go ADK,
google.golang.org/adk,adk-go, or asks how to build agents in Go. - The task involves ADK concepts like
llmagent, tools, callbacks, sessions/state/memory, workflow agents, streaming, MCP, A2A, ADK web/API runtime, launchers, deployment, evaluation, or safety controls.
Core rules
- Treat references/llms-index.md as the required ADK coverage map.
- Prefer official ADK Go APIs and examples over ad-hoc wrappers.
- Follow existing repository patterns first (imports, launcher style, layout, env handling).
- For version-sensitive behavior, check release notes and API reference before giving definitive guidance.
- Prioritize Go-specific ADK docs first; if a feature is documented only in another SDK doc, call that out explicitly.
- Keep agent names unique and never use
useras an agent name. - Use concise
Descriptionfields so delegation and tool selection remain reliable. - Treat ADK Web as development-only unless the user explicitly asks for production runtime choices.
Workflow
- Map task to ADK domain:
- Build, run, deploy, evaluate, safety, components, protocols, or reference. - Load only the relevant sections from references/llms-index.md.
- Confirm execution style:
- Launcher-first app (cmd/launcher, cmd/launcher/full) or embedded runtime (runner.Run loop). - Local dev UI, CLI-only, or REST/API server flow.
- Build the first working agent:
- llmagent.New(llmagent.Config{...}) with a concrete model (commonly gemini.NewModel(...)). - Add minimum viable Instruction, Description, and Tools.
- Add tools safely:
- Use functiontool.New(...) for typed custom tools. - Use geminitool.GoogleSearch{} or other ADK/native integrations only when needed. - For sensitive tools, apply confirmations, auth, and policy callbacks.
- Wire stateful execution:
- Sessions via session.Service (often session.NewInMemoryService() for local dev). - Add memory.Service only when cross-session retrieval is required. - Add state/context/artifacts management only when required by the workflow.
- Apply control points:
- Use callbacks (Before/After Model, Before/After Tool, agent callbacks) for logging, caching, guardrails, and overrides. - Prefer plugins for reusable security policy enforcement.
- Scale composition:
- Use workflow agents for deterministic orchestration (sequentialagent, parallelagent, loopagent). - Use multi-agent delegation (descriptions + transfer behavior) only when specialization is clear.
- Select runtime/deployment posture:
- Local dev: CLI/Web/API. - Production: deployment target + observability + safety posture.
- Verify behavior end-to-end:
- Validate happy-path conversation, tool errors, callbacks, session resume/rewind behavior, and evaluation criteria.
Output expectations
- Provide exact Go imports, runnable snippets, and command lines that match the chosen runtime mode.
- Call out version-sensitive behavior if the user targets older ADK tags.
- Mention the relevant ADK doc section when guidance comes from
llms-indexcategories beyond core Go quickstart pages. - Prefer small, testable incremental changes over large rewrites.
References
- Quickstart and launcher baseline: references/quickstart.md
- Core APIs and agent config: references/core-primitives.md
- Tools, callbacks, and guardrails: references/tools-and-guardrails.md
- Runtime modes, examples, and A2A: references/runtime-and-examples.md
- Required ADK source map (
llms.txtmirror): references/llms-index.md