Adk Architecture

google/adk-architecture

ADK architectural knowledge — graph orchestration, resumption, execution flow, node contracts, observability, and LLM context orchestration. Use this skill whenever you need to understand the architecture, event flow, or state management of the ADK system, or when designing or modifying core components. Triggers on "how does X work", "design of", "architecture of", "event flow", "resumption state", "checkpoint", "BaseNode", "NodeRunner".

13k tokens

context cost

the whole folder, loaded on every use

files

instructions only

copies elsewhere

how many repositories repackaged it

20998

stars on the repo

on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository

npx skills add https://github.com/google/adk-python --skill adk-architecture

What comes with it

50 918 bytes besides the instruction

references/architecture/checkpoint-resume.md

references/architecture/context.md

references/architecture/llm-context-orchestration.md

references/architecture/node-runner.md

references/architecture/observability.md

references/architecture/runner-roles.md

references/architecture/workflow-resumability.md

references/interfaces/agent.md

references/interfaces/base-agent.md

references/interfaces/base-node.md

references/interfaces/event.md

references/interfaces/runner.md

references/interfaces/workflow.md

references/principles/api-principles.md

The instruction itself

4 sections, as written by the author

ADK Architecture Guide

Core Interfaces (references/interfaces/)

BaseNode — node contract, output/streaming, state/routing, HITL, configuration
Workflow — graph orchestration, dynamic nodes (tracking/dedup/resume), transitive dynamic nodes, interrupt propagation, design rules for node authors
Runner — The public interface for executing workflows and agents. Documents entrance methods run and run_async.
Agent — Blueprint defining identity, instructions, and tools. Documents that run is the preferred entrance method.
BaseAgent — Base class for all agents. Defines the contract for subclassing with _run_impl as the primary override point.
Event — Core data structure for state reconstruction and communication. Represents a conversation turn, action, and state lifecycle immutability.

Key Principles (references/principles/)

API Principles — stability, backward compatibility, and self-containment. Use when making design choices that affect the public API surface.

Runtime Knowledge (references/architecture/)

Context — 1:1 node-context mapping, InvocationContext singleton, property reference
NodeRunner — two communication channels, execution flow, output delegation. Internal runtime details.
Runner Roles — Runner vs NodeRunner vs Workflow separation. Explains why they are separate to avoid deadlocks.
Checkpoint and Resume — HITL lifecycle, rerun_on_resume, run_id
Observability — span-on-Context design, NodeRunner integration, correlated logs, metrics
LLM Context Orchestration — relationship between events and LLM context, task delegation translation, branch isolation. Use when modifying event processing, context preparation for LLMs, or debugging context pollution issues.

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take google/adk-architecture from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.