Is it possible to call MCP tools parallel?

[yza740]

Is it possible to let agent call MCP tools parallel?

[adk-bot]

Response from ADK Answering Agent (experimental, answer may be inaccurate)

TLDR: Yes, it is possible for an agent to call MCP tools in parallel. The ADK framework is designed to support parallel execution of tools, and this extends to MCP tools as well.

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The ADK framework has built-in support for parallel function calling. This is demonstrated by the parallel_functions sample agent, which you can use as a reference [1]. The underlying mechanism uses asyncio to run tool calls concurrently, which can significantly improve performance [2].

ADK also features the ParallelAgent, which can execute sub-agents in parallel [3]. This further illustrates the framework's capability for concurrent execution.

When you use an MCPToolset with your agent, it allows the agent to interact with an MCP server and use its tools as if they were native ADK tools [4]. Because the ADK runtime handles the parallel execution of tool calls, if an agent decides to call multiple MCP tools at once, the MCPToolset will proxy these calls to the MCP server concurrently.

Therefore, the parallel execution of MCP tools is supported by the ADK framework.

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[1] https://github.com/google/adk-python/blob/main/contributing/samples/parallel_functions/README.md
[2] https://github.com/google/adk-python/blob/main/src/google/adk/flows/llm_flows/functions.py
[3] https://google.github.io/adk-docs/agents/multi-agents/
[4] https://google.github.io/adk-docs/tools/mcp-tools/