The OpenAI Agents SDK is a lightweight, production-ready framework for building agentic AI applications in Python. It provides a minimal yet powerful set of primitives including Agents (LLMs with instructions and tools to perform tasks), Handoffs (delegation mechanism enabling agents to route tasks to specialized subagents), Guardrails (parallel validation of inputs and outputs for safety and compliance), Sessions (automatic conversation history management across agent interactions), and Function Tools (simple conversion of Python functions into agent-callable tools with auto-generated schemas and validation). The framework features a Built-in Agent Loop that automates tool calling and LLM interaction cycles, along with Tracing & Monitoring capabilities providing native support for visualizing, debugging, and evaluating agent workflows.
We're currently using the SDK as the central entry point for all chat-based requests from the Homeport frontend. Each incoming request is handled by the Triage Agent, which evaluates the query and either responds directly or forwards it to a specialized subagent based on intent and context. As part of our evaluation, we have already tested alternative frameworks such as smolagents (which lacked streaming support), as well as agent frameworks from Google and LangChain. However, the OpenAI Agents SDK aligns with the broader industry standard set by the OpenAI Chat API, which has been widely adopted across major AI labs. This broad compatibility and the framework's robust design are why we've chosen to adopt it for our agentic AI implementations.