Installation

The PolyAI ADK can be installed as a Python package.

Install the ADK

We recommend installing in a virtual environment rather than installing to the global system Python. If you don't have uv installed, see the uv installation guide.

Run the following to create a virtual environment:

uv venv --python=3.14 --seed

Activate the virtual environment:

source .venv/bin/activate

Install the package with pip:

pip install polyai-adk

Generate API key

Log in to Agent Studio and open your workspace. In the Data Access tab (next to the Users tab), click + API Key in the top right to generate a key.

Then set it as an environment variable:

export POLY_ADK_KEY=<your-api-key>

The POLY_ADK_KEY environment variable must be set before running any poly commands. To make it permanent, add the export line to your shell profile (for example, ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc).

Once the ADK is installed and your API key is set, you can use the poly command to interact with Agent Studio projects locally.

Verify the installation

Confirm the CLI is available:

poly --help

You should see the top-level command help if installation succeeded.

Next step

Continue to the first commands page to explore the CLI.

• First commands

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  Learn the core ADK commands and how to inspect the CLI. Open first commands