Deep Agents

Deep Agents is a multi-step agent runtime with deep reasoning and planning capabilities. The Docker Compose profile starts Deep Agents alongside the LiteLLM Agent Platform and registers local-deepagents automatically. This page covers the LangChain Deep Agents Compose runtime. For the Pydantic Deep Agents bridge template, see Pydantic Deep Agents.

Prerequisites

Docker Desktop installed and running
LiteLLM Agent Platform repo cloned

1. Start the stack

docker compose --profile deepagents up

This starts:

The LiteLLM Agent Platform web/API service
A Postgres database
The Deep Agents runtime harness
Registers local-deepagents in the UI automatically

Open http://localhost:4000 and sign in with your master key (sk-local by default).

2. Add model provider credentials

In Settings → Credentials, add a model provider API key. Deep Agents routes all model calls through your LiteLLM gateway.

3. Create an agent

In the UI, click New Agent, choose local-deepagents as the runtime, select a model, and set a system prompt describing the agent’s role. Or via the API:

curl -X POST http://localhost:4000/api/agents \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-local" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "my-deepagent",
    "owner_id": "local-user",
    "runtime": "local-deepagents",
    "model": "claude-opus-4-5",
    "system": "You are an autonomous research agent. Plan carefully before acting."
  }'

4. Run your agent

Select your agent in the UI and start a session. Or via the API:

# Start and run a session
SESSION=$(curl -s -X POST http://localhost:4000/session \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-local" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "runtime": "local-deepagents",
    "agent_id": "<agent-id>",
    "prompt": "Research the top 5 open-source vector databases and compare them on latency and scalability."
  }' | jq -r .id)

# Stream the response
curl -N "http://localhost:4000/v1/sessions/$SESSION/events/stream" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-local"

Stop the stack

docker compose --profile deepagents down

Run alongside other runtimes

docker compose --profile deepagents --profile opencode up

CRON schedules

Deep Agents works well with scheduled runs. In the UI, open your agent, go to Schedules, and add a CRON expression:

0 9 * * 1-5

This runs the agent every weekday at 9 AM and creates a new session automatically.

Get started

Runtimes

Channels

Learn

Engineering

Prerequisites

1. Start the stack

2. Add model provider credentials

3. Create an agent

4. Run your agent

Stop the stack

Run alongside other runtimes

CRON schedules

​Prerequisites

​1. Start the stack

​2. Add model provider credentials

​3. Create an agent

​4. Run your agent

​Stop the stack

​Run alongside other runtimes

​CRON schedules

Prerequisites

1. Start the stack

2. Add model provider credentials

3. Create an agent

4. Run your agent

Stop the stack

Run alongside other runtimes

CRON schedules