Dependencies

Learn how to use dependencies to add context to your agents.

Dependencies is a way to inject variables into your Agent Context. dependencies is a dictionary that contains a set of functions (or static variables) that are resolved before the agent runs.

You can use dependencies to inject memories, dynamic few-shot examples, “retrieved” documents, etc.

Basic usage

You can reference the dependencies in your agent instructions or user message.

dependencies.py

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat

agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5-mini"),
    dependencies={"name": "John Doe"},
    instructions="You are a story writer. The current user is {name}."
)

agent.print_response("Write a 5 second short story about {name}")

You can set dependencies on Agent initialization, or pass it to the run() and arun() methods.

Using functions as dependencies

You can specify a callable function as a dependency. The dependency will be automatically resolved by the agent at runtime.

dependencies.py

import json
from textwrap import dedent

import httpx
from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat


def get_top_hackernews_stories() -> str:
    """Fetch and return the top stories from HackerNews.

    Args:
        num_stories: Number of top stories to retrieve (default: 5)
    Returns:
        JSON string containing story details (title, url, score, etc.)
    """
    # Get top stories
    stories = [
        {
            k: v
            for k, v in httpx.get(
                f"https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{id}.json"
            )
            .json()
            .items()
            if k != "kids"  # Exclude discussion threads
        }
        for id in httpx.get(
            "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"
        ).json()[:num_stories]
    ]
    return json.dumps(stories, indent=4)


agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5-mini"),
    # Each function in the dependencies is evaluated when the agent is run,
    # think of it as dependency injection for Agents
    dependencies={"top_hackernews_stories": get_top_hackernews_stories},
    # Alternatively, you can manually add the context to the instructions
    instructions=dedent("""\
        You are an insightful tech trend observer! 📰

        Here are the top stories on HackerNews:
        {top_hackernews_stories}\
    """),
    markdown=True,
)

# Example usage
agent.print_response(
    "Summarize the top stories on HackerNews and identify any interesting trends.",
    stream=True,
)

Dependencies are automatically resolved when the agent is run.

Adding dependencies to context

Set add_dependencies_to_context=True to add the entire list of dependencies to the user message. This way you don’t have to manually add the dependencies to the instructions.

dependencies_instructions.py

import json
from textwrap import dedent

import httpx
from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat


def get_user_profile() -> str:
    """Fetch and return the user profile for a given user ID.

    Args:
        user_id: The ID of the user to retrieve the profile for
    """

    # Get the user profile from the database (this is a placeholder)
    user_profile = {
      "name": "John Doe",
      "experience_level": "senior",
    }

    return json.dumps(user_profile, indent=4)

agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5-mini"),
    dependencies={"user_profile": get_user_profile},
    # We can add the entire dependencies dictionary to the user message
    add_dependencies_to_context=True,
    markdown=True,
)

agent.print_response(
    "Get the user profile for the user with ID 123 and tell me about their experience level.",
    stream=True,
)
# Optionally pass the dependencies to the print_response method
# agent.print_response(
#     "Get the user profile for the user with ID 123 and tell me about their experience level.",
#     dependencies={"user_profile": get_user_profile},
#     stream=True,
# )

This adds the entire dependencies dictionary to the user message between <additional context> tags. The new user message looks like this:

Get the user profile for the user with ID 123 and tell me about their experience level.                                                       
                                                                                                                                               
<additional context>                                                                                                                     
{                                                                                                                                        
"user_profile": "{\n    \"name\": \"John Doe\",\n    \"experience_level\": \"senior\"\n}"                                              
}                                                                                                                                        
</additional context> 

You can pass dependencies and add_dependencies_to_context to the run, arun, print_response and aprint_response methods.

Access dependencies in tool calls and hooks

You can access the dependencies in tool calls and hooks by using the RunContext object.

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.db.sqlite import SqliteDb
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIChat
from agno.run import RunContext

def get_user_profile(run_context: RunContext) -> str:
    """Get the user profile."""
    return run_context.dependencies["user_profiles"][run_context.user_id]

agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIChat(id="gpt-5-mini"),
    db=SqliteDb(db_file="tmp/agents.db"),
    tools=[get_user_profile],
    dependencies={"user_profiles": {"user_1001": {"name": "John Doe", "experience_level": "senior"}, "user_1002": {"name": "Jane Doe", "experience_level": "junior"}}},
)

agent.print_response("Get the user profile for the current user and tell me about their experience level.", user_id="user_1001", stream=True)

See the RunContext schema for more information.

Developer Resources

• View the Agent schema
• View Cookbook