---
title: "Exiting the agent loop"
icon: "lucide/DoorOpen"
---

import InstallSDKSnippet from "@/snippets/install-python-sdk-crew.mdx";

After your agent has finished a workflow, you'll usually want to explicitly end that loop by calling the `copilotkit_exit()` method in your Python code.

Exiting the agent has different effects depending on mode:

- **Router Mode**: Exiting the agent hands responsibility for handling input back to the router, which can initiate chat, call actions, other agents, etc. The router can return to this agent later (starting a new loop) to satisfy a user request.

- **Agent Lock Mode**: Exiting the agent restarts the workflow loop for the current agent.

In this example from [our email-sending app](https://github.com/copilotkit/copilotkit/tree/main/examples/coagents-qa), the `send_email` node explicitly exits, then manually sends a response back to the user as a `ToolMessage`:

<Steps>
    <Step>
        ### Install the CopilotKit SDK
        <InstallSDKSnippet components={props.components}/>
    </Step>

    <Step>
        ### Exit the agent loop
        This will exit the agent session as soon as the current CrewAI run is finished, either by a breakpoint or by reaching the `END` node.

        <Tabs groupId="language_crewai-flows_agent" items={['Python']} default="Python" persist>
            <Tab value="Python">
                ```python
                import uuid
                from litellm import completion
                from crewai.flow.flow import start
                from copilotkit.crewai import copilotkit_exit
                # ...
                @start()
                async def send_email(self):
                    """Send an email."""


                    # get the last message and cast to ToolMessage
                    last_message = self.state["messages"][-1]
                    if last_message["content"] == "CANCEL":
                        text_message = "❌ Cancelled sending email."
                    else:
                        text_message = "✅ Sent email."
                    self.state["messages"].append({"role": "assistant", "content": text_message, "id": str(uuid.uuid4())})
                    # Exit the agent loop after processing
                    await copilotkit_exit() # [!code highlight]
                ```
            </Tab>
        </Tabs>
    </Step>

</Steps>
