What is the PolyAI ADK?
Early access
The PolyAI ADK is currently in Early Access. Availability is limited, and some functionality may change before general release.
The PolyAI ADK (Agent Development Kit) is a CLI tool and Python package for interacting with Agent Studio projects on your local machine.
It provides a Git-like workflow for synchronizing project configurations between your local filesystem and the Agent Studio platform.
The ADK originated as Local Agent Studio, an internal Deployment team tool, and was later repackaged for external use with changes such as API key authentication and the removal of internal-only process references.
What it enables¶
With the ADK, developers can:
- build and edit Agent Studio projects locally
- synchronize project configuration with Agent Studio
- use Git-based workflows alongside agent development
- work with AI coding tools such as Cursor or Claude Code
- accelerate onboarding and agent building
Why it exists¶
The ADK was designed to move developer workflows out of the browser and into a local development environment.
Instead of editing everything directly inside Agent Studio, developers can pull a project locally, make changes using standard development tooling, and push those changes back to the platform.
This makes it easier to:
- iterate quickly
- collaborate across multiple contributors
- run validation and tests before deployment
- use coding agents to automate work that would otherwise be manual
Multi-developer workflows¶
The ADK was designed with multi-user collaboration in mind.
It preserves the same guardrails as Agent Studio, so developers should not be able to push changes that are incompatible with the project.
Git-like, but for Agent Studio
The ADK is best understood as a developer workflow layer for Agent Studio: pull, edit locally, validate, and push.
Next steps¶
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Install the ADK
Set up the ADK and prepare your environment. Open installation
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Watch the walkthrough
See a practical demonstration of the ADK in use. Open the walkthrough video