2.5.0

🚀 Release of ADK 2.5.0

ADK

• orchestrate settings observability langfuse remove command to unlink connected langfuse instance
• Python tool artifact responses for custom tool citations
• orchestrate observability search and orchestrate observability export for fetching trace data as json
• orchestrate tools list now includes display name
• Non-key-value connection types can now be used with local MCP servers

🐛 Bug fixes

• Fix for CPD environment activation with irregular urls
• Fix text wrapping in AI builder dry-run output

Developer Edition

• WSL config changes to avoid overwriting existing configuration

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed paths on user-managed windows

Customer Care Agent

• BYO opensearch for CCA knowledge

Full Changelog: 2.4.0...2.5.0

2.4.0

🚀 Release of ADK 2.4.0

Runtime

• Support for GTP-OSS on AWS Bedrock
• Experimental support for adding custom Langgraph agents

ADK

• Support for new Customer Care Style Agents
• Improved knowledge base import
• Improved server error messaging

Bugfixes 🐛

• Tools with bytes return type can now modify context

Developer Edition

• Can now specify custom cert files needed by backend components to connect to untrusted resources

Evaluations

• Enable Langfuse support fror recording evaluation runs

Full Changelog: 2.3.0...2.4.0

2.3.0

🚀 Release of ADK 2.3.0

ADK

• New orchestrate chat ask command for talking agents directly in your CLI
• Improved warning messages for Python tools with malformed docstrings
• Python tools can update context
• Export models and model-policies

Bugfixes 🐛

• Fix: AI builder autotune not converting guideline tools from id to name
• Fix: Auto-discover command unhidden
• Fix: AI builder not working if agent had non-native collaborators

Developer Edition

• Add support for new MCP Gateway

Bugfixes 🐛

• Fix: Langflow startup failure
• Fix for groq models using file upload

Flows

• Onboard flow tracing to agent analytics

Doc Processing

• Liquibase 5.0 migration

Evaluations

• Fix: 'role' key error

Known Issues/Limitations

• Python tools that export bytes are not able to update context
• In developer edition chat with docs is working in preview chat but not in the main chat

Full Changelog: 2.2.0...2.3.0

2.2.0

🚀 Release of ADK 2.1.0

ADK

• New default LLM groq/openapi/gpt-oss-120b
• Allow support for latest langchain version
• Allow for direct import from langflow
• Add new auto-discover feature for python tools to allow importing python functions without the @tool decorator as well as automatic docstring generation.

Bugfixes 🐛

• Allow webchat script creation for live agents in SaaS
• Fixed docstrings not parsing input descriptions
• Fixed timestamp bug when exporting knowledge bases

Developer Edition

• Automatically scale up VM when using optional doc processing components
• Upgrade langflow to 1.7.1

Builder

• Improved handling of custom models in UI components
• New deprecation and legal notices for model selection

UI

• More responsive chat experience

Channels

• New Facebook messenger and Microsoft teams channels
• New SIP phone channel
• Auto configuration for genesys audio connector credentials
• Added new tools to Orchestate ADK MCP server for new channel type authoring

Evaluations

• Adds new generate function and moves old generate function to legacy support

2.1.0

🚀 Release of ADK 2.1.0
Channels

• Adds the ability to author channels via Bob via mcp
• Adds gensys AC/BC integrations
• Adds more 3rd party voice configuraiton support

Developer Edition

• Adds the ability to skop opening the ui when running orchestrate chat start
• Adds the ability to configure orchestrate server to use the host docker engine rather than the built in docker engine
• Add optional --skip-open param to chat start command

Agent Builder (Architect)

• Adds new ui based agentic agent creation

ADK

• Its no longer necessary to specify a crn when using orchestrate channels webchat embed on ibm cloud
• Fixes importing mcp toolkits with absolute package paths
• Adds support for plugins to implement guardrails using python tools before/after agent execution

Builder

• Adds the ability to configure remote mcp servers in teh ui

Connections

• Support for single step sso token exchange

Eval

• Adopts new agent ops evaluation framework

🚀 Release of ADK VSCode extension 0.1.0
Our VSCode extension is now more powerful than ever.

In this release

• Adds the ability to launch webchat directly from within vscode for an agent you are editing
• Adds the ability to switch active env directly from within VSCode
• Adds an asset explorer to export, agents, tools, connections, toolkits, etc from your active environment to your filesystem
• Adds right click support to import agents and tools from your local file system into your active environment

Requires ADK 2.1.0
Get it today: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=watson-devex.ibm-watsonx-orchestrate-agent-builder

2.0.0

🚀 Release of ADK 2.0.0
Breaking Changes
ADK

• The Developer Edition of watsonx Orchestrate no longer requires a separate docker engine install. For users of the Developer Edition of watsonx Orchestrate, when upgrading it will be necessary to first delete their existing developer edition install as described below in thread.
• The orchestrate toolkits import command was renamed to orchestrate toolkits add.
• Knowledge ingestion now requires document processing started when not using DEVELOPER_EDITION_SOURCE=orchestrate

New Features
Runtime:

• It's now possible to use groq/openai/gpt-oss-120b as a model built into watsonx Orchestrate both in SaaS and Developer Edition. (If using DEVELOPER_EDITION_SOURCE=myibm, you will need to provide your own GROQ_API_KEY. If using DEVELOPER_EDITION_SOURCE=orchestrate this is included out of the box).

ADK:

• It's now possible to import and export mcp toolkits via a file rather than via cli arguments.
• Adds the ability to fetch context variables from python tools pragmatically rather than relying on an LLM to populate tool arguments.

Chat UI

• Adds the ability to specify an icon for your agent to be used within webchat
• Adds the ability to copy agent responses

Knowledge

• Bugfix: deleting an agent no longer deletes it's knowledge base
• Agentic knowledge search is now the default chat with docs option
• Switches to using WDU Document Processing for knowledge ingestion

WDU

• Adds the ability to extract tables

⚠️ Developer edition migration steps
Before updating the ADK:

1. orchestrate server reset
2. docker system prune -a --volumes

Update the ADK
pip install --upgrade ibm-watsonx-orchestrate==2.0.0

After updating the ADK:

1. (optional) Stop rancher/colima (it will no longer be used)
2. orchestrate server start -e .env

1.15.0

🚀 Release of ADK 1.15.0

ADK:

• Adds export support for openapi tools created from the adk (not ui)
• Adds export support for connections

Eval

• Adds ai gateway support for evaluation

A2A

• Adds support for a2a 0.3.0+

Builder UI:

• Simplifies the process of adding mcp tools

Knowledge:

• Allows knowledge bases to be reused across multiple agents

Flows

• Adds the ability to create forms in pro code agentic workflows

1.14.0

🚀 Release of ADK 1.14.0

New Features
Webchat

• Hide reasoning from native agents during user interactions.

ADK:

• Configure the encoding type used by ADK to handle files.

Knowledge

• Chat with documents and knowledge bases now supports full document context.

Agentic Workflows

• Expression support in flows: Agentic workflows now support expressions such as flow.input.variable_1.

A2A

• ADK now supports Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol version 0.3 for agent registration and operation. Versions 0.2 and 0.2.1 remain functional but are deprecated. For more information, see Agent to Agent (A2A) Protocol.
• Agent-to-agent communication now supports asynchronous updates via push notifications. For more information, see Agent to Agent (A2A) Protocol.

​
Copilot/ Agent Architect

• Specify the model used by the Orchestrate copilot server with the new --chat-llm flag. For more information, see Creating agent with Orchestrate copilot.

​
Evaluation

• Use the new --mode flag in orchestrate evaluations analyze to switch between default and enhanced analysis modes. For more information, see Analyzing: mode.
  ​

AI Gateway

• Use Groq as a provider for virtual models. Configure Groq using the provider_config field or a connection.
• Deploy on-demand models: Support added for deploying on-demand models with watsonx.ai. You must explicitly provide the model configuration during registration.

​
🐛 Bug fixes

• Toolkit listing error: Fixed issue where orchestrate toolkits list failed with a Pydantic validation error.
• Agent export error handling: Fixed orchestrate agents export to correctly display an error when a tool is not found.
• Starter prompt removal crash: Fixed issue where removing all starter prompts via the Agent Builder UI caused orchestrate agents list to break.

1.13.0

🚀 Release of ADK 1.13.0

New Features
Developer Edition

• It's now possible to pull Developer Edition images from an custom registry when operating in an airgapped environment

ADK/ CLI

• The display name of an agent now also shows up in our agent listing command if different from the agent name

ADK/ MCP

• The ADK now has two MCP server that can be integrated with a coding IDE like Bob, Cursor, Microsoft Copilot, etc
  • Our first MCP server will allow you to integrate your IDE with our documentation. This will allow you to ask any question of our docs without leaving your IDE, and your code editor agent of choice can do the same to learn how to author components of the ADK.
  • The second will enable your agent to issue any ADK command within your code editor agent of choice. You can use this to ask questions about the current state of agents and tools in your cluster, export agents and python tools from your cluster into your ide conversationally, and author and import your agents, tools, toolkits all conversationally (with updates to your local project filesystem).

ADK/ Agent Builder Copilot:

• Our agent building copilot now has a trajectory refinement feature where it's possible to start webchat with an agent you have already written, use the feedback options built into webchat, and allow your agent to automatically refine your instructions given that feedback.

Flows

• It's now possible to enable retry on specific nodes in a flow

1.12.2

Release Notes

• Hardcodes version of langflow builder ui (--with-langflow) to 1.5.0.post2