running-agents

Running Agents

The base Agent abstraction exposes various options for running the agent. Callers can choose to supply zero, one, or many input messages. Callers can also choose between streaming and non-streaming. Let's dig into the different usage scenarios.

Streaming and non-streaming

Microsoft Agent Framework supports both streaming and non-streaming methods for running an agent.

::: zone pivot="programming-language-csharp"

For non-streaming, use the RunAsync method.

Console.WriteLine(await agent.RunAsync("What is the weather like in Amsterdam?"));

For streaming, use the RunStreamingAsync method.

await foreach (var update in agent.RunStreamingAsync("What is the weather like in Amsterdam?"))
{
    Console.Write(update);
}

::: zone-end ::: zone pivot="programming-language-python"

For non-streaming, use the run method.

result = await agent.run("What is the weather like in Amsterdam?")
print(result.text)

For streaming, use the run method with stream=True. This returns a ResponseStream object that can be iterated asynchronously:

async for update in agent.run("What is the weather like in Amsterdam?", stream=True):
    if update.text:
        print(update.text, end="", flush=True)

ResponseStream

The ResponseStream object returned by run(..., stream=True) supports two consumption patterns:

Pattern 1: Async iteration — process updates as they arrive for real-time display:

response_stream = agent.run("Tell me a story", stream=True)
async for update in response_stream:
    if update.text:
        print(update.text, end="", flush=True)

Pattern 2: Direct finalization — skip iteration and get the complete response:

response_stream = agent.run("Tell me a story", stream=True)
final = await response_stream.get_final_response()
print(final.text)

Pattern 3: Combined — iterate for real-time display, then get the aggregated result:

response_stream = agent.run("Tell me a story", stream=True)

# First, iterate to display streaming output
async for update in response_stream:
    if update.text:
        print(update.text, end="", flush=True)

# Then get the complete response (uses already-collected updates, does not re-iterate)
final = await response_stream.get_final_response()
print(f"\n\nFull response: {final.text}")
print(f"Messages: {len(final.messages)}")