ADK Fundamentals: Agent Scaffolding and Setup

Core Principles

The Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) is an open-source Python framework for building production-grade AI agents with Vertex AI integration. ADK provides structured patterns for tool creation, state management, and multi-agent orchestration.

Environment Setup (Required Pattern)

Step 1: Create Python Environment with uv

ADK requires Python 3.13+ and modern dependency management. Use uv for fast, reliable environment setup:

# Install uv if not already installed
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Create new project directory
mkdir my-agent-project
cd my-agent-project