Google Agent Development Kit (ADK), explained on one whiteboard

The Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) is a framework for building AI agents with structured capabilities and tool integration. It provides a foundation for creating agents that can reason, plan, and execute tasks using defined tools and APIs. ADK enables developers to build production-ready agents with proper error handling, logging, and orchestration patterns.

Key Points

• •ADK is Google's framework for developing AI agents with built-in tool integration and capability management
• •Agents use a reasoning loop to process inputs, plan actions, and execute tools iteratively
• •Tool definitions are critical—they specify what actions an agent can perform and their parameters
• •ADK supports structured outputs and type safety for agent responses and tool interactions
• •The framework includes orchestration patterns for multi-step workflows and complex agent behaviors
• •Error handling and retry logic are built into the agent execution pipeline
• •ADK integrates with Google's LLM services (Gemini) for the reasoning and planning components
• •Agents maintain context and state across multiple tool invocations within a single session

Workflow Diagram

Concepts