Observed Signal · Jul 28, 2026 · Technical Release · Source: DEV Community · Impact: 4/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Large Language Models (LLM) & AI Market: Building AI Agents with Kotlin ADK
This tutorial demonstrates a starter "Hello World" AI agent built with the Kotlin Agent Development Kit (ADK). The sample project (on GitHub) shows a Kotlin LlmAgent configured to use Google's Gemini model and to discover and call a local "greet" tool via a Model Context Protocol (MCP) Ktor server. The repo includes two Gradle modules (agent and server), uses Kotlin 2.3.0, Kotlin ADK SDK v0.6.0, MCP Kotlin SDK v0.8.1, Ktor 3.0.0, Java 25, and Gradle 9.2.1. The tutorial covers local runs, unit tests, an MCP smoke test that does not require a Gemini API key, and instructions to containerize and deploy the MCP server to Google Cloud Run.
Google's ADK and the Kotlin SDK provide developer tooling for building agentic applications that integrate Gemini and Google Cloud services; this enables JVM-based agent development and could accelerate adoption of agent-driven conversational tooling and integrations.
Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Tutorial demonstrates a Kotlin ADK LlmAgent that uses Gemini and discovers a local 'greet' tool via Model Context Protocol (MCP).
- Kotlin ADK SDK version referenced: com.google.adk:google-adk-kotlin-core v0.6.0.
- MCP Kotlin SDK version referenced: io.modelcontextprotocol:kotlin-sdk-jvm v0.8.1.
- Project technology stack: Kotlin 2.3.0, Ktor 3.0.0, Java 25, Gradle 9.2.1.
- The sample includes instructions to deploy the Ktor MCP server container to Google Cloud Run and to run the agent locally or against the deployed service.
Connected Companies & Entities
4 Entities mappedJetBrains
Subscription software for developers, engineering teams and DevOps workflows.
“Kotlin is a modern, statically typed programming language created by JetBrains....”
GitHub
Developer platform for code collaboration, automation and AI coding.
“The full sample project is available on GitHub:...”
Search, video, adtech and cloud giant within Alphabet.
“The Agent Development Kit (ADK) is Google's code-first framework for building and deploying AI agents....”
Google Cloud
Enterprise cloud, data and AI services for businesses.
“Agent Development Kit (ADK) is designed for developers seeking fine-grained control and flexibility when building advanced AI agents that ar...”
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