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Running agents

Agents support both synchronous and asynchronous execution using either .invoke() / await .invoke() for full responses, or .stream() / .astream() for incremental streaming output. This section explains how to provide input, interpret output, enable streaming, and control execution limits.

Basic usage

Agents can be executed in two primary modes:

  • Synchronous using .invoke() or .stream()
  • Asynchronous using await .invoke() or async for with .astream()
from langgraph.prebuilt import create_react_agent

agent = create_react_agent(...)

response = agent.invoke({"messages": "what is the weather in sf"})

from langgraph.prebuilt import create_react_agent

agent = create_react_agent(...)
response = await agent.ainvoke({"messages": "what is the weather in sf"})

Inputs and outputs

Agents use a language model that expects a list of messages as an input. Therefore, agent inputs and outputs are stored as a list of messages under the messages key in the agent state.

Input format

Agent input must be a dictionary with a messages key. Supported formats are:

Format Example
String {"messages": "Hello"} — Interpreted as a HumanMessage
Message dictionary {"messages": {"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}}
List of messages {"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]}
With custom state {"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}], "user_name": "Alice"} — If using a custom state_schema

Messages are automatically converted into LangChain's internal message format. You can read more about LangChain messages in the LangChain documentation.

Using custom agent state

You can provide additional fields defined in your agent’s state schema directly in the input dictionary. This allows dynamic behavior based on runtime data or prior tool outputs.
See the context guide for full details.

Note

A string input for messages is converted to a HumanMessage. This behavior differs from the prompt parameter in create_react_agent, which is interpreted as a SystemMessage when passed as a string.

Output format

Agent output is a dictionary containing:

  • messages: A list of all messages exchanged during execution (user input, assistant replies, tool invocations).
  • Optionally, structured_response if structured output is configured.
  • If using a custom state_schema, additional keys corresponding to your defined fields may also be present in the output. These can hold updated state values from tool execution or prompt logic.

See the context guide for more details on working with custom state schemas and accessing context.

Streaming output

Agents support streaming responses for more responsive applications. This includes:

  • Progress updates after each step
  • LLM tokens as they're generated
  • Custom tool messages during execution

Streaming is available in both sync and async modes:

for chunk in agent.stream(
    {"messages": "what is the weather in sf"},
    stream_mode="updates"
):
    print(chunk)

async for chunk in agent.astream(
    {"messages": "what is the weather in sf"},
    stream_mode="updates"
):
    print(chunk)

Tip

For full details, see the streaming guide.

Max iterations

To control agent execution and avoid infinite loops, set a recursion limit. This defines the maximum number of steps the agent can take before raising a GraphRecursionError. You can configure recursion_limit at runtime or when defining agent via .with_config():

from langgraph.errors import GraphRecursionError
from langgraph.prebuilt import create_react_agent

max_iterations = 3
recursion_limit = 2 * max_iterations + 1
agent = create_react_agent(
    model="anthropic:claude-3-5-haiku-latest",
    tools=[get_weather]
)

try:
    response = agent.invoke(
        {"messages": "what's the weather in sf"},
        {"recursion_limit": recursion_limit},
    )
except GraphRecursionError:
    print("Agent stopped due to max iterations.")

from langgraph.errors import GraphRecursionError
from langgraph.prebuilt import create_react_agent

max_iterations = 3
recursion_limit = 2 * max_iterations + 1
agent = create_react_agent(
    model="anthropic:claude-3-5-haiku-latest",
    tools=[get_weather]
)
agent_with_recursion_limit = agent.with_config(recursion_limit=recursion_limit)

try:
    response = agent_with_recursion_limit.invoke(
        {"messages": "what's the weather in sf"},
    )
except GraphRecursionError:
    print("Agent stopped due to max iterations.")

Additional Resources

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