OpenAI Agents SDK
OpenAI's framework for multi-agent workflows and tool use
- Best for
- Teams running multi-agent workflows on OpenAI models
- Pricing
- SDK is free, you pay for OpenAI API usage
- Stack layer
- AI Stack
Live preview of openai.github.io/openai-agents-python
Overview
OpenAI Agents SDK is the successor to Swarm and the official way to build multi-agent systems on GPT models. It introduces a clean primitive — the Agent — plus handoffs between agents, structured outputs, guardrails, and built-in tracing through the OpenAI dashboard.
We reach for this when a workflow needs more than one specialized agent (a planner, a researcher, a writer) and we want the routing logic to live in plain code instead of a prompt-engineering puzzle.
Tracing is the killer feature — every tool call, handoff, and decision is visible in the OpenAI dashboard, which makes debugging agents tractable.
Key Features
Agents
First-class primitive with instructions, tools, and handoffs
Handoffs
Route tasks between specialized agents declaratively
Guardrails
Validate inputs and outputs before they hit the model
Tracing
Every step recorded in the OpenAI dashboard
Structured Outputs
Type-safe responses with Pydantic schemas
Voice Support
Build real-time voice agents on top of the same primitives
Why We Recommend OpenAI Agents SDK
The cleanest mental model for multi-agent systems we've used. Handoffs are explicit, tracing is built in, and the API is small enough to keep in your head.