Open-source agent SDK
Strands Agents
Strands Agents is an open-source project from Amazon Web Services for building and running AI agents in Python and TypeScript. It includes the Strands Agents SDK, the fully assembled Strands harness released in September 2026, the Strands CLI and Strands Evals, and it supports models from Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and local Ollama.
Last reviewed 28 Oct 2026 · by Amazon Web Services
Facts at a glance
| Developer | Amazon Web Services |
|---|---|
| Type | Agent SDK, agent harness and CLI |
| License | Apache 2.0 |
| Languages | Python and TypeScript |
| Strands harness release | 21 September 2026 source |
| Install | pip install strands-harness, npm install @strands-agents/harness, npm install -g @strands-agents/cli |
What Strands Agents is used for
The Strands SDK is meant for teams that would otherwise write their own agent loop: it runs in the application's process with no hosted control plane and covers tools, MCP, multi-agent patterns, memory, sessions, streaming, guardrails and tracing. Strands harness packages those parts into a ready-made general-purpose agent. The timeline below lists every story on this site that names Strands.
Questions people ask
- Is Strands Agents open source?
- Yes. The Strands harness announcement says it is available under the Apache 2.0 license.
- Does Strands only work on AWS?
- No. AWS says Strands harness runs on models from Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Ollama or LiteLLM and can be deployed on any provider that runs Linux containers.