Google ADK Explained: Agents, State, Workflows and Guardrails (ADK 2)

Google ADK 2 introduces a framework for building AI agents with specialized roles and responsibilities. The platform enables agents to work as coordinated teams through parallel execution, state management, and workflow orchestration. Key components include agent definitions, state handling, workflow coordination, and guardrails to ensure safe and reliable agent behavior.

Key Points

• •Design agents with single, well-defined responsibilities that can be composed into larger teams
• •Use parallel execution patterns where multiple agents (scouts) can search and process information simultaneously
• •Implement critic agents that validate and filter plans before execution to ensure quality
• •Manage agent state effectively to track context, decisions, and intermediate results across workflow steps
• •Define workflows that orchestrate multi-agent collaboration with clear handoff points and dependencies
• •Apply guardrails to constrain agent behavior, prevent hallucinations, and ensure compliance with safety requirements
• •Leverage ADK's built-in tools for agent communication, state persistence, and workflow monitoring
• •Structure agents as reusable components that can be combined into different team configurations

Workflow Diagram

Concepts