// Map of AG2 beta capabilities and which sibling skill to reach for. Load first when the user mentions building with AG2 beta (autogen.beta) but the specific feature isn't yet clear — agents, tools, model config, delegation, memory, observers, structured output, HITL, AG-UI, telemetry, or testing.
Persist agent state across runs, shape what the LLM sees per turn, and cap history to fit a context window. Covers `KnowledgeStore` (memory / sqlite / disk / redis), `KnowledgeConfig` (`store=`, `compact=`, `aggregate=`, `bootstrap=`), aggregation strategies (`WorkingMemoryAggregate`, `ConversationSummaryAggregate`), assembly policies (`WorkingMemoryPolicy`, `EpisodicMemoryPolicy`, `ConversationPolicy`, `SlidingWindowPolicy`, `TokenBudgetPolicy`, `AlertPolicy`), and compaction (`TailWindowCompact`, `SummarizeCompact`). Use when the user wants the agent to remember between conversations, manage long histories, or control prompt assembly.
Monitor an AG2 beta agent's stream — log events, detect repeated tool calls, track token spend, build trigger-driven observers, route observer alerts to the model, and halt on FATAL conditions. Covers `@observer(...)` (stateless), `BaseObserver` (stateful), built-ins (`TokenMonitor`, `LoopDetector`), `Watch` primitives (`EventWatch`, `CadenceWatch`, `DelayWatch`, `IntervalWatch`, `CronWatch`, `AllOf`, `AnyOf`, `Sequence`), `ObserverAlert` (`Severity.INFO/WARNING/CRITICAL/FATAL`), `AlertPolicy`, and `HaltEvent`. Use when the user wants observability, runtime safety guards, alerts, or batch/time-based reactive logic.
Add a custom Python tool to an AG2 beta `Agent` using the `@tool` decorator. Use when the user wants to give an Agent a new capability backed by Python code (API calls, DB queries, computations, file ops). Covers sync and async tools, parameter typing, Pydantic schema customisation, returning typed `Input` / `ToolResult` (text / data / images / binary), `final=True` early-exit, and dependency injection via `Context` / `Inject` / `Variable` / `Depends`.
Expose an AG2 beta `Agent` over the AG-UI protocol so a frontend (CopilotKit, custom React/Next.js, or any AG-UI client) can stream responses, render tool calls, sync shared state, and surface human-input checkpoints. Wraps the agent with `AGUIStream(agent)` and mounts it in FastAPI via `stream.dispatch(...)` or `stream.build_asgi()`. Use when the user wants a web frontend in front of an AG2 agent rather than a CLI / script.
Pause an AG2 beta `Agent` mid-run to collect human input via `context.input()`, or gate a tool call with `approval_required()` middleware. Use when the user wants the agent to ask for confirmation, request missing info (passwords, API keys, data), or have a human approve sensitive / irreversible / expensive tool calls (sending emails, deleting records, payments).
Intercept the AG2 beta agent loop with `BaseMiddleware` — wrap full turns (`on_turn`), each LLM call (`on_llm_call`), each tool execution (`on_tool_execution`), or each human-input request (`on_human_input`). Use for retry, logging, history trimming, request mutation, tool auditing, guardrails, or rate limiting. Built-ins: `LoggingMiddleware`, `RetryMiddleware`, `HistoryLimiter`, `TokenLimiter`, `TelemetryMiddleware` (see `ag2-telemetry`). For per-tool hooks see also `ag2-add-custom-tool` tool-middleware section.
| name | ag2-overview |
| description | Map of AG2 beta capabilities and which sibling skill to reach for. Load first when the user mentions building with AG2 beta (autogen.beta) but the specific feature isn't yet clear — agents, tools, model config, delegation, memory, observers, structured output, HITL, AG-UI, telemetry, or testing. |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
AG2 beta (autogen.beta) is an async, protocol-driven agent framework. The full reference docs live under website/docs/beta/. This skill is the index of sibling skills that cover the common build paths.
Read this file first when a request mentions "AG2 beta", "autogen.beta", 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.
Anything you build with AG2 needs three things in place. Get these right once and the rest of the skills run cleanly:
pip install "ag2[openai]", ag2[anthropic], ag2[gemini], etc. The *Config class will raise ImportError: ... requires optional dependencies without it.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.python -c "import sys, autogen; print(sys.executable, autogen.__version__)". 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".
| 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 | LocalShellTool (any provider), provider-side ShellTool, 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 |
| 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 |
| OpenTelemetry traces / metrics | ag2-telemetry | TelemetryMiddleware, GenAI semconv attributes, content capture |
These are repo-wide rules from CLAUDE.md. Apply them whenever generating code that lands in autogen/beta/:
from __future__ import annotations.__init__ — apply them at runtime.pathlib.Path; public signatures accept str | os.PathLike[str].autogen.beta top-level (e.g. from autogen.beta import Agent, tool, Context); advanced/specialised APIs come from sub-modules (autogen.beta.middleware, autogen.beta.config, etc.).If a skill's recipe is incomplete for the case at hand, the source docs are at website/docs/beta/. Each sibling skill points to its primary .mdx files in its own "Going deeper" section.