Learning: OpenAI Agent SDK

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This is the first post in a series exploring the OpenAI Agent SDK and its practical applications. The SDK stands out for its elegant simplicity and lightweight architecture, making it an excellent choice for developers looking to build sophisticated agentic systems without unnecessary complexity.

The OpenAI Agent SDK tutorial showcases numerous agentic patterns, each designed to solve specific types of problems. In this post, we'll dive into two fundamental patterns: deterministic flows and tool selection.

All the code examples discussed in this series are available in our GitHub repository. We've chosen the healthcare domain as our focus area because it provides clear, practical examples of how agentic patterns can solve real-world problems while demonstrating the importance of reliability and accuracy in AI systems.

Deterministic Pattern: Medical Triage System

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The deterministic pattern ensures consistent, reproducible results - crucial for healthcare applications where reliability is paramount. Our implementation creates a simple yet effective medical triage workflow:

1. User Input: A patient or healthcare provider enters an illness or medical condition
2. Symptom Generation: An AI agent analyzes the condition and generates clinically relevant symptoms
3. Department Routing: A specialized medical agent reviews the symptoms and recommends the appropriate hospital department

This streamlined workflow demonstrates how deterministic patterns can create predictable, auditable AI systems that healthcare professionals can trust and rely upon.

Demo (please view the video in full screen and it does not have audio)

Tool Selection Pattern: Medical Translation Service

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The tool selection pattern showcases how an orchestrator agent can intelligently route tasks to specialized agents based on requirements. Our medical translation system includes:

1. Orchestrator Agent: Analyzes user requests and determines the appropriate translation service
2. Language Specialists: Dedicated agents for Spanish, French, and Italian medical translations

This pattern demonstrates the power of modular, scalable agent architectures where specialized components work together seamlessly.

Demo (please view the video in full screen and it does not have audio)

What's Next?

In upcoming posts, we'll explore additional patterns and dive deeper into implementation details, best practices, and advanced orchestration techniques. Stay tuned to learn how the OpenAI Agent SDK can transform your approach to building intelligent applications.