AG2 — capability map

AG2 (

ag2

) is an async, protocol-driven agent framework. The full reference docs live under

website/docs/user-guide/

. This skill is the index of sibling skills that cover the common build paths.

When to use

Read this file first when a request mentions "AG2", "ag2", or building agents in this repo and you don't yet know which feature is needed. Use the table below to pick the right specialised skill, then load that skill's

SKILL.md

for the recipe.

Before you start

Anything you build with AG2 needs three things in place. Get these right once and the rest of the skills run cleanly:

Install the right provider extra —
```
pip install "ag2[openai]"
```
,
```
ag2[anthropic]
```
,
```
ag2[gemini]
```
, etc. The
```
*Config
```
class will raise
```
ImportError: ... requires optional dependencies
```
without it. Run the install before delivering code. If you cannot run commands, state the exact
```
pip install
```
command. This is a required step.

Set the matching API key —

OPENAI_API_KEY

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

GEMINI_API_KEY

(or

GOOGLE_API_KEY

). Loading from a project-root

.env

via

from dotenv import load_dotenv; load_dotenv()

is the common pattern.

Sanity-check the install —
```
python -c "import sys, ag2; from importlib.metadata import version; print(sys.executable, version('ag2'))"
```
. If you have multiple Python environments, this confirms which
```
ag2
```
your script will actually import.

Full per-provider table (install + env var + config class) lives in

ag2-quickstart

→ "Prerequisites".

Pick the right skill

User intent	Skill	What it covers
Build an `Agent` from scratch, pick a model	`ag2-quickstart`	`Agent` , `ModelConfig` , `ask()` / `reply.ask()` chaining, providers, env vars
Give the Agent a custom Python tool	`ag2-add-custom-tool`	`@tool` , sync/async, `ToolResult` , `Context` , `Inject` , `Variable` , `Depends`
Use shipped tools (web search, code exec, MCP, etc.)	`ag2-use-builtin-tools`	`WebSearchTool` , `WebFetchTool` , `CodeExecutionTool` , `MCPServerTool` , `ImageGenerationTool` , `MemoryTool` , `FilesystemToolkit` , `DuckDuckSearchTool` , `ExaToolkit` , `TavilySearchTool`
Run shell commands from an agent	`ag2-shell-tool`	`SandboxShellTool` + `LocalEnvironment` (any provider), provider-side `ShellTool` (OpenAI Responses), sandboxing ( `allowed` / `blocked` / `ignore` / `readonly` )
Get typed Pydantic / dataclass output	`ag2-structured-output`	`response_schema=` , `ResponseSchema` , `@response_schema` , `PromptedSchema` , `reply.content()` , retries
Multi-agent: parallel subtasks or named delegates	`ag2-subagent-delegation`	`tasks=TaskConfig()` , `run_subtasks(parallel=True)` , `Agent.as_tool()` , `persistent_stream`
Pause for human input or gate a tool with approval	`ag2-hitl`	`context.input()` , `hitl_hook` , `approval_required()` middleware
Logging, retry, history-trim, custom interception	`ag2-middleware`	`BaseMiddleware` , `LoggingMiddleware` , `RetryMiddleware` , `HistoryLimiter` , `TokenLimiter` , tool middleware
Test agents and tools	`ag2-testing`	`TestConfig` , mocking LLM responses, simulating `ToolCallEvent`
Evaluate / benchmark an agent offline, CI gate, scorers	`ag2-evaluation`	`Suite` , `run_agent` , `final_answer_matches` / `tool_called` / `agent_judge` , `@scorer` , `RunResult` , `TestConfig` , `evaluate_traces` , `diff().regressions`
Compare models / prompts — leaderboard or head-to-head	`ag2-eval-comparison`	`run_variants` ( `Variants({name: Agent}, axis=...)` ), `run_pairwise` + `pairwise_judge` (win-rate, Wilson CI, flips, κ), `human_pairwise`
Persistent memory across runs, history compaction, assembly	`ag2-knowledge-and-memory`	`KnowledgeStore` , `KnowledgeConfig` , `WorkingMemoryAggregate` , `AssemblyPolicy` , `SlidingWindowPolicy` , `TokenBudgetPolicy` , `TailWindowCompact` , `SummarizeCompact`
Observability, alerts, halts	`ag2-observers-and-alerts`	`BaseObserver` , `TokenMonitor` , `LoopDetector` , `EventWatch` , `CadenceWatch` , `AlertPolicy` , `HaltEvent`
Send images / audio / video / PDFs in	`ag2-multimodal-input`	`ImageInput` , `AudioInput` , `VideoInput` , `DocumentInput` , `FilesAPI`
Web frontend via the AG-UI protocol	`ag2-ag-ui`	`AGUIStream` , FastAPI mount, CopilotKit
Serve an agent as an MCP server (server side)	`ag2-mcp`	`MCPServer` , stdio / HTTP, prompts, resources, `SessionConfig` , `AskContext`
Expose an agent over the A2A protocol	`ag2-a2a`	`A2AServer` , `build_jsonrpc` / `build_rest` / `build_grpc` , `AgentCard` , `A2AConfig` (consume remote)
Realtime voice / live audio (talking agent, STT, TTS)	`ag2-live`	`LiveAgent` , `GeminiRealTimeConfig` / `OpenAIRealTimeConfig` , `SoundDeviceRecorder` / `Player` , `OpenAITranscriber` , `TTSObserver`
OpenTelemetry traces / metrics	`ag2-telemetry`	`TelemetryMiddleware` , GenAI semconv attributes, content capture

Multi-agent networks

Whenever two or more agents need to interact, load ag2-network-quickstart
first — the network is the standard multi-agent pattern in AG2. It covers the

Hub

setup and the two 2-party channel adapters (

consulting

for strict 1Q1R and

conversation

for free-form). After the quickstart, route to the right deep-dive:

User intent	Skill	What it covers
N-party round-robin / fixed turn order	`ag2-network-discussion`	`discussion` adapter, `ORDERING_ROUND_ROBIN` knob, `can_send` probe pattern, view-window sizing
Declarative orchestration / `TransitionGraph` / GroupChat migration	`ag2-network-workflow`	`workflow` adapter, `TransitionGraph.sequence` / `.round_robin` , `Handoff` , `ToolCalled` , `ContextEquals` , `context_vars` , 8 cookbook patterns, classic- `GroupChat` migration
Rate limits, access policy, expectations, audit, capability tracking	`ag2-network-governance`	`Rule` ( `AccessBlock` / `LimitsBlock` / `RateBlock` / `InboxBlock` ), `Expectation` s, audit log + `AUDIT_KIND_*` , task observation, `Resume.observed`
Custom envelope handlers, view policies, peer discovery, the LLM-facing network tools	`ag2-network-tools-and-views`	adapter-owned `say` + the five `NetworkPlugin` tools ( `delegate` / `peers` / `channels` / `tasks` / `context` ), `agent_client.on_envelope` , `ViewPolicy` ( `FullTranscript` / `WindowedSummary` / `NamedWindowedSummary` ), `skill_md` peer discovery, full `Envelope` / `EV_*` reference

Not a network task: if the user has one agent recursively spawning its own sub-tasks (via

run_subtask

run_subtasks(parallel=True)

) or calling another agent as a lightweight tool, use ag2-subagent-delegation
— no hub, no registry, no channels. The network is for distinct, registered agents collaborating through a shared hub.

ag2-overview

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

AG2 — capability map

When to use

Before you start

Pick the right skill

Multi-agent networks