Quickstart

Build agents that get smarter with every use.

Rich Threads keep messages, generative UI, and tool activity available across sessions and devices.

Learning turns real usage into skills that improve your agent.

Build a new agent or bring one you already have. Any frontend, any backend.

Prerequisites#

Before you begin, you'll need the following:

An OpenAI API key
Node.js 20+
Python 3.12+ (Python agents only)
Your favorite package manager

Getting started#

Create a free account#

Sign up for a free developer account for CopilotKit Intelligence to get a license key. You'll use it later to enable persistent threads and the inspector.

Choose your starting point#

You can either start fresh with our starter template or integrate CopilotKit into your existing Strands agent.

Run our CLI#

npx copilotkit@latest create --framework aws-strands-py

npx copilotkit@latest create --framework aws-strands-ts

The CLI walks you through:

Project name
CopilotKit Intelligence — persistent threads and the inspector. Choose Yes to scaffold a project pre-wired for the platform (the CLI walks you through sign-up, or you can create an account first), or No for a standard AWS Strands setup.
Framework — the command selects the AWS Strands template for this page.

Install dependencies#

npm install

Configure your environment#

Create a .env file in your agent directory and add your OpenAI API key:

agent/.env

OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key

What about other models?

The starter template is configured to use OpenAI's GPT-4o by default, but you can modify it to use any language model supported by Strands.

Start the development server#

npm run dev

pnpm dev

yarn dev

bun dev

This will start both the UI and agent servers concurrently.

🎉 Start chatting!#

Your AI agent is now ready to use! Navigate to localhost:3000 and try asking it some questions:

What can you do?

Please tell me a joke.

What do you think about React?

Troubleshooting

If you're having connection issues, try using 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost
Make sure your agent is running on port 8000
Check that your OpenAI API key is correctly set
Verify that the @ag-ui/client package is installed in your frontend

Open Inspector and confirm setup#

On localhost, click the Inspector button in the corner of the app.

Open Agents, then Agent. Your agent is listed.
Send a chat message. Open Agents, then AG-UI Events. Events are moving.
Open Threads. The list is unlocked (Intelligence is on), or locked with Enable Intelligence (Intelligence is off).

More detail: Inspector.

Deploying to AWS?#

If you're planning to deploy your Strands agent to AWS Bedrock AgentCore, see the AgentCore deploy guide.

What's next?#

Now that you have your basic agent setup, explore these advanced features:

Add some generative UI

Render your agent's progress and output in the UI.

Setup frontend tools

Give your agent the ability to call frontend tools, directly updating your application.