The OpenHands Software Agent SDK provides Python, TypeScript, and REST APIs for building agents that work with code.
You can use the OpenHands Software Agent SDK for:
- One-off tasks, like building a README for your repo
- Routine maintenance tasks, like updating dependencies
- Major tasks that involve multiple agents, like refactors and rewrites
Importantly, agents can either use the local machine as their workspace, or run inside ephemeral workspaces
(e.g. in Docker or Kubernetes) using the Agent Server.
You can even use the SDK to build new developer experiences: it’s the engine behind the
OpenHands CLI and OpenHands Cloud.
Get started with some examples or check out the docs to learn more.
Quick Start
Here's what building with the SDK looks like:
import os
from openhands.sdk import LLM, Agent, Conversation, Tool
from openhands.tools.file_editor import FileEditorTool
from openhands.tools.task_tracker import TaskTrackerTool
from openhands.tools.terminal import TerminalTool
llm = LLM(
model="gpt-5.5",
api_key=os.getenv("LLM_API_KEY"),
)
agent = Agent(
llm=llm,
tools=[
Tool(name=TerminalTool.name),
Tool(name=FileEditorTool.name),
Tool(name=TaskTrackerTool.name),
],
)
cwd = os.getcwd()
conversation = Conversation(agent=agent, workspace=cwd)
conversation.send_message("Write 3 facts about the current project into FACTS.txt.")
conversation.run()
print("All done!")
For installation instructions and detailed setup, see the Getting Started Guide.
For local development from this repository, run make build to install the workspace dependencies and pre-commit hooks.
Repository boundaries
This repository owns the canonical Python SDK and Agent Server implementation as well as the browser-compatible TypeScript client. It owns agents, tools, conversations, workspaces, events, the REST/WebSocket API, and typed client access to that API. OpenHands/OpenHands consumes the TypeScript client as Agent Canvas, while OpenHands/automation owns scheduling, webhooks, run history, and dispatching. The SDK/Agent Server executes the conversations dispatched by automation.
The normal flow is SDK/Agent Server → OpenAPI contract → clients/typescript → Agent Canvas. Backend behavior and endpoints belong in the Python SDK or Agent Server packages; browser-compatible client access belongs in clients/typescript, UI in Agent Canvas, and automation lifecycle behavior in automation.
Documentation
For detailed documentation, tutorials, and API reference, visit:
https://docs.openhands.dev/sdk
The documentation includes:
Examples
The examples/ directory contains comprehensive usage examples:
- Standalone SDK (
examples/01_standalone_sdk/) - Basic agent usage, custom tools, and core workflows
- Remote Agent Server (
examples/02_remote_agent_server/) - Client-server architecture and WebSocket connections
- GitHub Workflows (
examples/03_github_workflows/) - CI/CD integration and automated workflows
- Skills and Plugins (
examples/05_skills_and_plugins/) - AgentSkills, plugins, and marketplace examples
Skills for modern package tooling
If you enable public skills with AgentContext(load_public_skills=True), the default
OpenHands/extensions marketplace includes, for example, uv and deno skills.
Agents can automatically pick up current package-management guidance for repositories
that use markers like uv.lock, deno.json, deno.jsonc, or deno.lock.
See examples/01_standalone_sdk/03_activate_skill.py for a minimal example that
turns on public skill loading.
Contributing
For development setup, testing, and contribution guidelines, see DEVELOPMENT.md.
Community
Cite
@misc{wang2025openhandssoftwareagentsdk,
title={The OpenHands Software Agent SDK: A Composable and Extensible Foundation for Production Agents},
author={Xingyao Wang and Simon Rosenberg and Juan Michelini and Calvin Smith and Hoang Tran and Engel Nyst and Rohit Malhotra and Xuhui Zhou and Valerie Chen and Robert Brennan and Graham Neubig},
year={2025},
eprint={2511.03690},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.SE},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03690},
}
Thank You to Our Contributors
Trusted by Engineers at
