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Let additional instructions be provided at agent.run time. #3309

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Merged
merged 5 commits into from
Nov 4, 2025
Merged

Let additional instructions be provided at agent.run time. #3309

merged 5 commits into from
Nov 4, 2025
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@baek54321 baek54321 commented Nov 2, 2025 •
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Implements #3290

@baek54321 baek54321 force-pushed the feature/temporary_instructions branch 2 times, most recently from 55ee9f9 to 37a899b Compare November 2, 2025 11:20
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@sabman Thanks for working on this! A few comments you'll want to address, and please also update the iter/run methods on TemporalAgent, DBOSAgent, and PrefectAgent to get the tests to pass.

docs/agents.md Outdated
2. **Dynamic instructions**: These rely on context that is only available at runtime. Dynamic instructions can be further divided into *temporary* dynamic instructions which are used only for a
single run and *permanent* dynamic instructions, which are used for all runs.
- **Dynamic temporary instructions*: Should be defined via the *instructions* argument to any of the `run` methods and will be effective only for the specific run for which they have been specified
- **Dynamic permanent instructions*: Should be defined using functions decorated with [`@agent.instructions`][pydantic_ai.Agent.instructions]. Unlike dynamic system prompts, which may be reused when `message_history` is present, dynamic instructions are always reevaluated.
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I understand why you updated the docs in this particular way, but I'd prefer to keep "dynamic" to mean "depends on RunContext/deps", as it is with dynamic system prompts, dynamic toolsets, etc.

So I'd prefer to mention "Runtime instructions" as a third bullet after "Static" and "Dynamic", indicating a new type rather than subtype.

"Instructions, like system prompts, fall into two categories:" could then become something like "Instructions, like system prompts, can be specified at different times:"

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Done, please see my second commit: https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic-ai/pull/3309/commits

@DouweM DouweM self-assigned this Nov 3, 2025
@baek54321 baek54321 force-pushed the feature/temporary_instructions branch 2 times, most recently from 256a964 to d599924 Compare November 4, 2025 08:17
@baek54321 baek54321 force-pushed the feature/temporary_instructions branch from d599924 to 5d5a9aa Compare November 4, 2025 08:28
@baek54321 baek54321 changed the title Add instructions argument to run methods of agent class. Feature: Add instructions argument to run methods of agent class. Nov 4, 2025
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baek54321 commented Nov 4, 2025 •
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@sabman Thanks for working on this! A few comments you'll want to address, and please also update the iter/run methods on TemporalAgent, DBOSAgent, and PrefectAgent to get the tests to pass.

@DouweM : Thanks for the hints, I missed those classes. Just adjusted all of them. PR is ready from my side. :)

@baek54321 baek54321 marked this pull request as ready for review November 4, 2025 08:29
@baek54321 baek54321 requested a review from DouweM November 4, 2025 08:32
DouweM
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@DouweM DouweM changed the title Feature: Add instructions argument to run methods of agent class. Let additional instructions be provided at agent.run time. Nov 4, 2025
@DouweM DouweM enabled auto-merge (squash) November 4, 2025 22:39
@DouweM DouweM merged commit d8c0526 into pydantic:main Nov 4, 2025
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