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docs: add Agent Instruction Anti-Patterns guide

Open jpantsjoha opened this issue 1 week ago • 0 comments

Summary

Add comprehensive documentation identifying common agent instruction anti-patterns and providing proven solutions. This guide addresses community-reported issues with HITL (Human-in-the-Loop) patterns and autonomous polling instructions.

Problem Addressed

Based on analysis of GitHub issues #3607, #3645, and #3184, developers are struggling with:

  • Agent instructions that create polling loops, increasing inference costs by ~93%
  • Poor user experience from manual "continue" clicking in HITL scenarios
  • Confusion about when to use different HITL patterns
  • Lack of guidance on proper agent instruction architecture

Key Features

  • Identifies autonomous polling anti-patterns that violate LLM stateless principles
  • Documents Backend Blocking Poll pattern as the proven solution used in ADK framework
  • Provides decision matrix for choosing appropriate HITL approaches
  • Includes validated code examples cross-referenced with ADK codebase samples
  • Covers instruction overloading and separation of concerns best practices

Validation

All patterns and solutions have been validated against:

  • /contributing/samples/human_in_loop/ - Complete HITL example implementation
  • /contributing/samples/human_tool_confirmation/ - Tool confirmation patterns
  • /src/google/adk/tools/long_running_tool.py - Framework-level anti-polling protection
  • /src/google/adk/flows/llm_flows/functions.py - Async execution patterns

Impact

This documentation fills a critical gap identified in community discussions, providing:

  • Cost reduction by preventing inefficient polling patterns
  • Better UX through proper async HITL implementation
  • Clear guidance for developers on instruction best practices
  • Framework alignment with ADK's event-driven architecture

Testing

  • ✅ Markdown syntax validated
  • ✅ Navigation structure updated in mkdocs.yml
  • ✅ Examples cross-referenced with working ADK samples
  • ✅ Links to GitHub issues verified

The guide provides immediately actionable guidance for ADK developers building production agent systems.

jpantsjoha avatar Nov 24 '25 15:11 jpantsjoha