Agentic AI Notebook
Phase 16

ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents

~2 min read

Concept & How It Works

  • Key points are in the visual diagram above.

Why Does It Exist?

Monolithic agents hallucinate on long tasks. Workflows decompose work into focused sub-agents with clear inputs/outputs, improving reliability and testability.

Real-World Analogy

ADK Workflows are a film production crew: director (orchestrator) assigns scenes to specialists (sub-agents) who work in sequence or parallel.
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Visual Workflows

What is ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents?

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Example

Scenario

Research workflow: ParallelAgent runs `web_search_agent` and `internal_kb_agent` → SequentialAgent passes merged context to `synthesis_agent` → `citation_checker_agent`.

Solution

In Google ADK, apply ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents to this scenario: Research workflow: ParallelAgent runs `web_search_agent` and `internal_kb_agent` → SequentialAgent passes merged context to `synthesis_agent` → `citation_checker_agent`. Identify the inputs, run the technique, validate the output, and note one thing you would monitor in production.

Practice Task

Do this before moving to the next module — reading alone is not enough.

Open the Code Walkthrough below and run it locally. Change one parameter related to ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents (e.g. model, temperature, top_k, or tool name), observe the difference in output, and write 2–3 sentences explaining what changed.

Code Walkthrough

Highlighted lines show where ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents happens in the code.

ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents
1from google.adk.agents import SequentialAgent, ParallelAgent, LlmAgent  # import dependencies2
3research = ParallelAgent(agents=[web_agent, kb_agent], name="gather")4pipeline = SequentialAgent(agents=[research, synthesis_agent], name="research_flow")

Commands to Remember

Commands to Remember

  • pip install google-adk # Google Agent Development Kit
  • adk web # local ADK UI

Common Mistakes

  • Treating ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents as a black box without evaluation
  • Ignoring cost and latency in production
  • Skipping error handling for google adk workflows

Cheat Sheet

Quick recap — the most important points from this module.

Cheat Sheet

quick ref
  • ADK Workflows & Sub-Agents
  • SequentialAgent
  • ParallelAgent
  • Sub-Agent