The Agent Development Kit (ADK) is set of CLI utilities and python modules that helps you create agents and tools for watsonx Orchestrate. You can use these agents and tools across different watsonx Orchestrate offerings, including:

watsonx Orchestrate AWS
watsonx Orchestrate IBM Cloud
watsonx Orchestrate on-premises
watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition

ADK components

The ADK has a CLI. The CLI can streamline the process of building, testing, and importing agents and tools

Component	Description	Key Features
Agent	An AI agent uses tools and other agents to plan and act, performing tasks while reflecting on the results and refining its output to align with its defined objectives.	- Can use other agents as collaborators to solve complex tasks - Handles task decomposition and synthesis - Uses tools autonomously to work on behalf of the user
Tool	A function that can be invoked to perform specific actions or retrieve information	- Well-defined inputs and outputs - Permission-based access control - Support for multiple binding types (Python, OpenAPI, Skill, etc) - Schema validation - Reusable across agents

The ADK also provides a framework for developers to easily define new tools and agents programmatically.

How it all works together

Tools are defined using one of the available binding types (Python, OpenAPI, MCP, etc.) and then imported into the Orchestrate platform using the Orchestrate CLI.
Agents are defined using the ADK and then imported into the Orchestrate platform using the Orchestrate CLI. Agents use the tools defined in step 1.
Once an agent is imported, it can be used to start conversations with users either through the Orchestrate Agent Chat UI or through the Orchestrate API.

Release Notes

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watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition

watsonx Orchestrate ADK MCP Server

Reference

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What is watsonx Orchestrate ADK

ADK components

How it all works together

​ADK components

​How it all works together

ADK components

How it all works together