Jidoka: Hello Agent

Build the smallest useful Jidoka agent, inspect its compiled definition, and send it one provider-backed chat request through a Jidoka.Session.

Setup

This notebook installs Jidoka from GitHub so it can run from Livebook without a local checkout. Chat cells use a Livebook secret named ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.

Mix.install(
  [
    {:jidoka, git: "https://github.com/agentjido/jidoka.git", branch: "main"},
    {:kino, "~> 0.19.0"}
  ],
  config: [
    jidoka: [
      model_aliases: %{
        fast: "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5"
      }
    ]
  ]
)

Jidoka.Kino.setup()

Define An Agent

A Jidoka agent starts with four public sections:

• agent do for stable identity and optional context schema
• defaults do for instructions and model
• capabilities do for tools and other model-reachable capabilities
• lifecycle do for runtime policy like hooks, guardrails, and memory

Only agent.id and defaults.instructions are needed for this first agent.

defmodule LivebookDemo.AssistantAgent do
  use Jidoka.Agent

  agent do
    id :livebook_assistant
    description "Minimal assistant used by the first Jidoka Livebook."
  end

  defaults do
    model :fast
    instructions "You are a concise assistant. Answer directly."
  end
end

Inspect the compiled agent without making a model call:

{:ok, definition} = Jidoka.inspect_agent(LivebookDemo.AssistantAgent)

Map.take(definition, [
  :kind,
  :id,
  :description,
  :model,
  :context,
  :tool_names,
  :subagent_names,
  :workflow_names,
  :handoff_names
])

Run The Agent

Create a session and send one message. The session is just data: it names the conversation, the runtime agent id, and trusted context. Jidoka.chat/3 starts or reuses the session’s runtime agent.

session =
  Jidoka.Session.new!(
    agent: LivebookDemo.AssistantAgent,
    id: "livebook-assistant",
    context: %{channel: "livebook"}
  )

Map.take(session, [:id, :agent_id, :conversation_id, :context])

Jidoka.Kino.chat/3 captures useful runtime events, renders a compact trace, and returns plain response text.

Jidoka.Kino.chat("Assistant chat", fn ->
  Jidoka.chat(session, "Write one sentence about what Jidoka does.")
end)

Next

Continue with:

• Tools And Context
• Workflows And Imports