ADK Code Reference

SkillAI & models

This skill turns your coding assistant into an expert at building AI agents on Google Cloud. Once added, it can help you create agents, check how well they work, and deploy them to Google Cloud. It includes Google's agents command line tool to support that work.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

After adding it, ask your coding assistant to build and test a first agent, then deploy it to Google Cloud. The underlying project lives at github.com/google/agents-cli.

Then ask your AI: use the ADK Code Reference skill

What your AI can do with it

  • Create AI agents with expert-level guidance
  • Evaluate agents to see how well they perform
  • Deploy finished agents to Google Cloud
  • Work with Google's agents command line tool

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by google/agents-cli in skills/google-agents-cli-adk-code/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Activate /google-agents-cli-workflow first for required development phases and scaffolding steps.

1. Study Recipes (No Project Needed)

Read the topic index in references/samples.md before answering "how do I build X". Worked implementations exist for: sandboxed/per-user code execution, agent-loadable SKILL.md skills, cross-session memory, approval gates before risky actions, tool guardrails, per-user credentials, and scheduled/event-driven runs.

The index only gives you a name; the recipe is the code. Clone it and read its AGENTS.md before you implement anything it covers. Hand-writing a Docker or E2B sandbox wrapper, a skill loader, a moderation callback or a memory store — for a capability the index lists — means you stopped at the name.

2. Prerequisites for Writing Code

Do NOT write agent code until a project is scaffolded.

  1. Verify project: run agents-cli info (proceed if config exists).
  2. New project: run agents-cli scaffold create <name>.
  3. Existing code: run agents-cli scaffold enhance ..

Language Support: This reference covers the Python ADK SDK. Support for other languages coming soon.

Quick Reference — Most Common Patterns

from google.adk.agents import Agent

def get_weather(city: str) -> dict:
    """Get current weather for a city."""
    return {"city": city, "temp": "22°C", "condition": "sunny"}

root_agent = Agent(
    name="my_agent",
    model="gemini-3.7-flash",
    instruction="You are a helpful assistant that ...",
    tools=[get_weather],
)

References

Use cheatsheets for common patterns. For deep knowledge, fetch the docs index or inspect the installed package.

ReferenceWhen to read
references/samples.mdTopic-indexed catalog of ADK reference recipes. Read in workflow Phase 1 — before scaffolding and before writing code — maps a capability to the recipe that implements it.
references/adk-python.mdCore ADK API: Agent, tools, callbacks, plugins, state, artifacts, multi-agent systems, SequentialAgent / ParallelAgent / LoopAgent, custom BaseAgent, ManagedAgent (server-hosted first-party agents), A2A protocol, A2UI. Default for most agents.
references/adk-workflows.mdGraph-based Workflow API (ADK 2.0): nodes, edges, fan-out/fan-in, HITL, parallel processing. Use when you need explicit graph topology.
curl https://adk.dev/llms.txtDocs index (every page title + URL). Fetch it, then WebFetch the specific page for anything beyond the cheatsheets.
Installed ADK packageExact signatures and symbols — inspect the source (see "Inspecting ADK Source Code" in references/adk-python.md).

Related Skills

  • /google-agents-cli-workflow — Development workflow, coding guidelines, and operational rules
  • /google-agents-cli-scaffold — Project creation and enhancement with agents-cli scaffold create / scaffold enhance
  • /google-agents-cli-eval — Evaluation methodology, dataset schema, and the eval-fix loop
  • /google-agents-cli-deploy — Deployment targets, CI/CD pipelines, and production workflows

Signals

GitHub stars
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Last commit
Sep 2026
Installs
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Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
google-agents-cli-adk-code
Source
github.com/google/agents-cli