Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) Tutorial: Get Started in 5 Minutes [2026]

Install ADK Install via pip: `pip install google

adk`. Requires Python

9+. For Java, add the `google

adk` Maven dependency to your project. ##

Get a Gemini API Key Sign up at [Google AI Studio](https://aistudio.google.com) and generate a free API key. Set it as an environment variable: `export GOOGLE_API_KEY=your

here`. No credit card required for the free tier. ##

Create Your First Agent Create a Python file and define your agent: ```python from google.adk.agents import Agent my_agent = Agent( name="my_assistant", model="gemini

flash", instructions="You are a helpful assistant that answers questions clearly and concisely.", ) ``` ##

Add Tools Give your agent capabilities by defining tool functions: ```python def get_weather(city: str)

> dict: """Get the current weather for a city.""" return {"city": city, "temp": "72°F", "condition": "sunny"} agent = Agent( name="weather_agent", model="gemini

flash", instructions="Help users check the weather.", tools=[get_weather], ) ``` ##

Run and Test Locally Use the ADK CLI to start a local development server: `adk web` launches an interactive UI at localhost:8000 where you can chat with your agent, inspect tool calls, and debug behavior. ##

Evaluate Your Agent Define evaluation cases to test agent behavior: ```python from google.adk.evaluation import EvalSet eval_set = EvalSet(cases=[{"input": "Weather in NYC?", "expected_tools": ["get_weather"]}]) ``` Run evaluations with `adk eval` to score trajectories and catch regressions before deploying. ##

Deploy to Production For managed hosting, deploy to Vertex AI Agent Engine: `adk deploy cloud_run` or configure Vertex AI Agent Engine through the Google Cloud Console. For self

hosting, package your agent as a standard Python application and deploy to any container runtime.