OpenAI Agents SDK
OpenAI's official multi-agent framework, evolved from the experimental Swarm project. Provides agents, handoffs, tools, guardrails, and tracing.
Last updated: April 26, 2026
Definition
The OpenAI Agents SDK is the official OpenAI framework for building multi-agent systems, released in early 2025 as the production successor to the experimental Swarm project. Core abstractions: Agents (LLM + instructions + tools), Handoffs (mechanism for one agent to delegate to another), Guardrails (input/output validators that run alongside the agent), and Tracing (built-in observability). Although it ships as an OpenAI product, the SDK supports any LLM provider that exposes a Chat Completions-compatible API, including Claude via Anthropic's OpenAI-compatible endpoint and many open-source models.
When To Use
Pick the OpenAI Agents SDK if you are already deep in the OpenAI ecosystem and want first-class handoff semantics and tracing. The lightweight design is well-suited to small to medium multi-agent systems.
Related Terms
Building with OpenAI Agents SDK?
I've shipped this pattern in real production systems. If you want a second pair of eyes on your architecture, that's what I do.