What's the point of _enforce_app_name_alignment in runners.py?

[kawolum]

If I am using InMemoryRunner.run_debug wouldn't _enforce_app_name_alignment always complain about app_name mismatch?

[adk-bot]

Response from ADK Answering Agent (experimental, answer may be inaccurate)

TLDR: The _enforce_app_name_alignment function in runners.py is a safeguard to ensure consistency between the app_name configured in the runner and the one inferred from your agent's file structure. This prevents errors where the runner can't find the right sessions or artifacts for your agent. It won't always complain when using InMemoryRunner.run_debug, but it will if it detects a mismatch. You can avoid this by explicitly providing the correct app_name when you create the InMemoryRunner.

---

Hello! That's an excellent question that gets to the heart of how ADK manages resources.

The app_name parameter is a crucial identifier within the ADK framework. It's used to namespace and scope various resources, most importantly sessions and artifacts. When you create a session or save a file, the app_name ensures that the data is stored and retrieved for the correct application.

The purpose of the _enforce_app_name_alignment method is to act as a validation step. It checks that the app_name you've configured your Runner with matches the app_name that ADK infers from your agent's file path and origin. A test case in the ADK repository highlights that a mismatch will intentionally raise a ValueError to prevent the runner from failing to find a session and other resources. This helps prevent subtle bugs where your agent might appear to be working but is unable to access its conversational history or other necessary data.

Regarding your concern with InMemoryRunner.run_debug:

It's not that it will always complain, but it will complain if there's a mismatch. When you initialize an InMemoryRunner without specifying an app_name, it defaults to 'InMemoryRunner'. If your agent's code is located in a directory that suggests a different application name (e.g., my_agent/agent.py), the alignment check will fail, and you'll get an error.

The solution is to be explicit. To prevent this issue, you should pass the correct app_name when you instantiate the runner. For example:

from google.adk.runners import InMemoryRunner
from your_agent_module import my_agent # or your App object

# Explicitly set the app_name to match your application's name
runner = InMemoryRunner(agent=my_agent, app_name="my_agent_app")

# Now run_debug will use the correct app_name
await runner.run_debug("Hello there!")

By doing this, you ensure that the runner, the session service, and the artifact service all use the same consistent identifier for your application, and the alignment check will pass as expected.

I am closing this discussion, but if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to open a new discussion.

[1] https://google.github.io/adk-docs/streaming/custom-streaming-ws/
[2] https://github.com/google/adk-python/blob/main/src/google/adk/runners.py
[3] https://google.github.io/adk-docs/tutorials/agent-team/
[4] https://github.com/google/adk-docs/blob/main/examples/python/snippets/tools/auth/agent_cli.py
[5] https://google.github.io/adk-docs/artifacts/
[6] https://github.com/google/adk-python/blob/main/tests/unittests/test_runners.py

[kawolum]

The whole point of using InMemoryRunner.run_debug is so that I can get started quickly and it abstracts the session id and app name.

1. It doesn't look like it raise an error in runner.py, only log warning
2. What's the point of the default app name InMemoryRunner if I have to put my agent in a InMemoryRunner directory which is weird or specify the correct app name which doesn't abstract the app name

[hangfei]

@GWeale to help answer this.

[GWeale]

Hi, @kawolum

_enforce_app_name_alignment is just a guardrail. It compares the runners app_name to the agent’s folder name (under agents/) and logs a warning to help you debug “session not found” issues. It does not block run_debug.

InMemoryRunner defaults app_name to "InMemoryRunner" just so you can call run_debug without passing anything. The sessions are created and read with that same name. The warning is only about the folder mismatch.

To silence the warning, pass app_name (like, InMemoryRunner(agent, app_name="my_agent")) or put the agent in App(name="my_agent", root_agent=agent). You would not need to move the agent into an InMemoryRunner directory.