Agentkit CLI

AgentKit CLI

The agentkit CLI (also aliased ak) scaffolds, builds, deploys, and manages agents on Volcengine AgentKit. It signs Volcengine OpenAPI requests, so every command needs credentials (see Authentication). Optimize for a tight loop: init → deploy → invoke → iterate.

For the exhaustive command list with one-liners and examples, read references/commands.md — locate it and read it rather than guessing at flags. When in doubt about what exists, run agentkit tree (add --all for args/options, --json for machine output).

When to Use This Skill

• Scaffolding a new agent project (init) and shipping it (deploy)
• Calling a deployed runtime (invoke) or inspecting one (runtime show/logs/versions)
• Managing AgentKit resources: knowledge bases, memory collections, tools, datasets
• Building a code-free agent from a harness.yaml (harness)
• Signing in via SSO or switching login profiles (auth)
• Diagnosing a CLI, auth, build, or deploy failure

Authentication

Every command signs a Volcengine OpenAPI request; without credentials it fails. Provide them one of two ways:

• SSO (recommended) — a browser login that stores short-lived STS credentials:

  agentkit login <sso-address>     # opens a browser, stores an STS session
  agentkit whoami                  # confirm the active identity
  

  login / logout / whoami are available both under auth and at the top level. Multiple SSO targets are handled with login profiles (auth profile set/list/show).

• AK/SK — set in the environment or a git-ignored local .env:

  VOLCENGINE_ACCESS_KEY=<ak>
  VOLCENGINE_SECRET_KEY=<sk>
  VOLCENGINE_REGION=cn-beijing      # optional; this is the default
  

Region is auto-sensed per resource; override any command with -r, --region.

Core Workflow: init → deploy → invoke

# scaffold a project from a language + template
# templates: verify current support with agentkit init --list.
# Python ships basic-agent (default), veadk-agent-app, and several
# agent-with-* channel templates; Go / Java / TypeScript ship basic-agent only.
# `agentkit-harness` is NOT a template — it's the `agentkit harness` command
# path (code-free agent from a harness.yaml). See "Code-Free Agents (harness)".
agentkit init my-agent -L python -t basic-agent
cd my-agent

# ... edit the agent (instruction, tools) ...

# one-shot build & deploy — runs config → build → apply
agentkit deploy --name my-agent

# call the deployed runtime (resolves endpoint + auth automatically)
agentkit invoke my-agent -m "hello"

# when something misbehaves, read the cloud instance logs
agentkit runtime logs my-agent --limit 100

deploy is the composite of three steps you can also run individually:

Run them separately when you want to inspect or hand-edit agentkit.yaml / the Dockerfile between scaffolding and building.

init generates .agentkit/agentkit.yaml from a single source, so every language/template starts from the same, current config. deploy is yaml-driven — runtime resources, envs (${VAR} refs, never plaintext secrets), gateway auth, an im.feishu bot proxy, and an SSO frontend BFF are all declared there, no flags needed. The model credential is resolved on the cloud runtime from its mounted IAM role / AK-SK, so do not set MODEL_AGENT_API_KEY.

Managing a Runtime

agentkit runtime list                         # all runtimes
agentkit runtime show my-agent --rev 3        # details for a specific version
agentkit runtime versions my-agent            # version history
agentkit runtime release my-agent --rev 3     # publish a version → live
agentkit runtime update my-agent \            # change config; add --auto-release to publish
  --min-instance 1 --max-instance 5 --auto-release
agentkit runtime logs my-agent --instance <id> --limit 100
agentkit runtime delete my-agent -y

update changes configuration but does not publish unless you pass --auto-release; otherwise follow it with runtime release.

AgentKit Resources

Knowledge bases (knowledge, alias kb), memory collections (memory, alias mem), and tools (tool) share the same list / show / create / update / delete shape:

agentkit kb list
agentkit kb create --name my-kb                     # auto-provisions a new viking KB
agentkit kb create --name my-kb --provider-knowledge-id kb-xxxx   # register an existing one
agentkit kb add my-kb ./notes.md ./docs             # upload + index files or whole dirs (or --url)

agentkit mem list
agentkit mem create --name my-mem --provider-type viking

agentkit tool list
agentkit tool create --name my-mcp --tool-type McpServer --image-url <url> --port 8080

Code-Free Agents (harness)

A harness is an agent defined entirely by a harness.yaml — no application code:

agentkit harness init my-harness              # writes harness.yaml + .env.example
agentkit harness set --name my-agent \        # partial update; run with no flags to list fields
  --model-name doubao --system-prompt "You are helpful."
agentkit harness deploy                       # build the harness image + create/update the runtime

Evaluation

The eval loop is dataset → evaluator → run → results. The eval prefix is optional (agentkit dataset … == agentkit eval dataset …).

Datasets ("evaluation sets") hold cases; verbs distinguish the target — create/delete act on the dataset, add/remove on its cases:

agentkit dataset create --name my-dataset --schema question,answer
agentkit dataset add my-dataset --field 'input=最大的行星?' --field 'reference_output=木星'
agentkit dataset show my-dataset --items 20   # lists cases WITH their ITEM IDs
agentkit dataset remove my-dataset <item-id>  # remove by ITEM ID from `dataset show`

An evaluator is a scoring rubric + judge model; submit an experiment against a deployed runtime, then read the scores:

agentkit eval evaluator create --name my-judge \       # clone a preset template
  --from-template <template-id> --model ep-xxxxxxxx
agentkit eval run --dataset my-dataset \               # dataset × evaluators × runtime
  --evaluator my-judge --target my-agent
agentkit eval experiment results <id> --limit 20       # per-row input/output/scores

Conventions

• Aliases: knowledge↔kb, memory↔mem, experiment↔exp; the eval prefix is optional.
• JSON output: most read commands accept --json for scripting.
• Region: auto-sensed unless you pass -r, --region.
• Confirmation: destructive commands (delete, remove, destroy) prompt; pass -y to skip.
• Self-service: agentkit docs opens the documentation; agentkit upgrade updates the CLI itself.

Gotchas

• Auth first. Every command hits the signed OpenAPI. If commands fail with an auth error, run agentkit whoami; re-login if the STS session has expired.
• deploy builds in the cloud, not locally — the Dockerfile must use a Volcengine-hosted base image and no # syntax= directive (cloud builds can't reach Docker Hub). Install dependencies from PyPI.
• update ≠ release. runtime update stages configuration; the change is not live until a runtime release (or --auto-release).
• invoke resolves the endpoint from the runtime name/id automatically — you don't pass a URL. It auto-detects the runtime's route (/run_sse vs /invoke).
• Read runtime logs for the cloud instance's stdout/stderr when a deploy is Ready but the agent misbehaves; that's where model-credential and startup errors surface.