Server-side only (no audio I/O dependencies)

pip install strands-agents[bidi]

With audio I/O support (includes PyAudio dependency)

pip install strands-agents[bidi,bidi-io]

**Quick Example:**

async def main(): # Create bidirectional agent with Nova Sonic v2 model = BidiNovaSonicModel() agent = BidiAgent(model=model, tools=[calculator, stop_conversation])

# Setup audio and text I/O (requires bidi-io extra) audio_io = BidiAudioIO() text_io = BidiTextIO()

# Run with real-time audio streaming # Say "stop conversation" to gracefully end the conversation await agent.run( inputs=[audio_io.input()], outputs=[audio_io.output(), text_io.output()] )

if name == "main": asyncio.run(main())

> **Note**: `BidiAudioIO` and `BidiTextIO` require the `bidi-io` extra. For server-side deployments where audio I/O is handled by clients (browsers, mobile apps), install only `strands-agents[bidi]` and implement custom input/output handlers using the `BidiInput` and `BidiOutput` protocols.

**Configuration Options:**

Install Strands Agents

pip install strands-agents strands-agents-tools

Note: For the default Amazon Bedrock model provider, you'll need AWS credentials configured and model access enabled for Claude 4 Sonnet in the us-west-2 region. See the Quickstart Guide for details on configuring other model providers.

Installation

Ensure you have Python 3.10+ installed, then:

```bash

Install Strands and tools

pip install strands-agents strands-agents-tools ```

Quick Start

```bash

Example tools

Strands offers an optional strands-agents-tools package with pre-built tools for quick experimentation:

from strands import Agent
from strands_tools import calculator
agent = Agent(tools=[calculator])
agent("What is the square root of 1764")

It's also available on GitHub via strands-agents/tools.

Create and activate virtual environment

python -m venv .venv source .venv/bin/activate # On Windows use: .venv\Scripts\activate

Configure audio settings and turn detection (v2 only)

model = BidiNovaSonicModel( provider_config={ "audio": { "input_rate": 16000, "output_rate": 16000, "voice": "matthew" }, "turn_detection": { "endpointingSensitivity": "MEDIUM" # HIGH, MEDIUM, or LOW }, "inference": { "max_tokens": 2048, "temperature": 0.7 } } )

Configure I/O devices

audio_io = BidiAudioIO( input_device_index=0, # Specific microphone output_device_index=1, # Specific speaker input_buffer_size=10, output_buffer_size=10 )

Llama API

llama_model = LlamaAPIModel( model_id="Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct-FP8", ) agent = Agent(model=llama_model) response = agent("Tell me about Agentic AI") ```

Built-in providers: - Amazon Bedrock - Anthropic - Gemini - Cohere - LiteLLM - llama.cpp - LlamaAPI - MistralAI - Ollama - OpenAI - OpenAI Responses API - SageMaker - Writer

Custom providers can be implemented using Custom Providers