Getting started with Google ADK

I was trying to get started with the Google ADK but I felt like the documentation lacked a straight forward example to just copy and run.

This is what I tried to do here.

Create a new project and install google-adk using uv

uv init adk
cd adk
uv add google-adk
uv sync

And you’re good to go in terms of boilerplate.

Then add the code

First, import the imports:

import asyncio
import os

from google.adk.agents import Agent
from google.adk.runners import Runner
from google.adk.sessions import InMemorySessionService
from google.genai import types

Good. Then you will need the Agent:

os.environ["GOOGLE_GENAI_USE_VERTEXAI"] = "FALSE"
os.environ["GOOGLE_API_KEY"] = "PASTE_YOUR_ACTUAL_API_KEY_HERE"

agent = Agent(
    name="agent name",
    model="gemini-2.0-flash",
    description="agent description",
    instruction="system prompt",
    output_key="response",
)

Then you will need the session:

app_name = "gcgbarbosa's blog"
session_service = InMemorySessionService()

user_id = "user_id"
session_id = "session_id"

session_service.create_session(
    app_name=app_name,
    user_id=user_id,
    session_id=session_id,
)

The last thing you need is the runner:

runner = Runner(
    agent=agent,
    app_name=app_name,
    session_service=session_service,
)

Now you can receive a message from the user or another agent and run it trough the agent that you just created:

async def run_agent(message: str):
  content = types.Content(role="user", parts=[types.Part(text=message)])

  # Execute the agent and get the final response
  final_response = ""
  async for event in runner.run_async(
      user_id=user_id,
      session_id=session_id,
      new_message=content,
  ):
      if event.is_final_response() and event.content and event.content.parts:
          final_response = event.content.parts[0].text
          break

  return final_response

response = asyncio.run(run_agent("Hello, how are you?"))

This is the simplest agent that you can create. It does not even use tools (is it really an agent if it does not use tools? probably not).

The documentation shows how to use tools anyways: ADK Quickstart.

Good luck!