cagent

cagent

Agent Builder and Runtime by Docker Engineering

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cagent is a powerful and easy-to-use multi-agent runtime that orchestrates AI agents with specialized capabilities and tools, allowing users to quickly build, share, and run a team of virtual experts to solve complex problems. It supports creating agents with YAML configuration, improving agents with MCP servers, and delegating tasks to specialists. Key features include multi-agent architecture, rich tool ecosystem, smart delegation, YAML configuration, advanced reasoning tools, and support for multiple AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Docker Model Runner.

README:

🤖 Docker cagent 🤖

Build, run, and share AI agents with a declarative YAML config, rich tool ecosystem, and multi-agent orchestration.

cagent in action

What is Docker cagent?

Docker cagent lets you create and run intelligent AI agents that collaborate to solve complex problems — no code required. Define agents in YAML, give them tools, and let them work.

agents:
  root:
    model: openai/gpt-5-mini
    description: A helpful AI assistant
    instruction: |
      You are a knowledgeable assistant that helps users with various tasks.
      Be helpful, accurate, and concise in your responses.
    toolsets:
      - type: mcp
        ref: docker:duckduckgo
cagent run agent.yaml

Key Features

  • Multi-agent architecture — Create teams of specialized agents that delegate tasks automatically
  • Rich tool ecosystem — Built-in tools + any MCP server (local, remote, or Docker-based)
  • AI provider agnostic — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Mistral, xAI, Docker Model Runner, and more
  • YAML configuration — Declarative, versionable, shareable
  • Advanced reasoning — Built-in think, todo, and memory tools
  • RAG — Pluggable retrieval with BM25, embeddings, hybrid search, and reranking
  • Package & share — Push agents to any OCI registry, pull and run them anywhere

Install

Docker Desktop (4.49+) — cagent is pre-installed. Just run cagent.

Homebrew — brew install cagent

Binary releases — Download from GitHub Releases.

Set at least one API key (or use Docker Model Runner for local models):

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...        # or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GOOGLE_API_KEY, etc.

Quick Start

# Run the default agent
cagent run

# Run from the agent catalog
cagent run agentcatalog/pirate

# Generate a new agent interactively
cagent new

# Run your own config
cagent run agent.yaml

More examples in the examples/ directory.

Documentation

📖 Full documentation

Contributing

Read the Contributing guide to get started. We use cagent to build cagent:

cagent run ./golang_developer.yaml

Telemetry

We collect anonymous usage data to improve the tool. See Telemetry.

Community

Docker Community Slack · #cagent channel

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