Context Providers

Context providers run around each invocation to add context before execution and process data after execution.

Built-in pattern

The regular pattern is to configure providers through context_providers=[...] when creating an agent.

ChatHistoryProvider and AIContextProvider are the built-in extension points for short-term history and long-term/context enrichment.

For Python, InMemoryHistoryProvider is the built-in history provider used for local conversational memory.

from agent_framework import InMemoryHistoryProvider
from agent_framework.openai import OpenAIChatClient

agent = OpenAIChatClient().as_agent(
    name="MemoryBot",
    instructions="You are a helpful assistant.",
    context_providers=[InMemoryHistoryProvider("memory", load_messages=True)],
)

session = agent.create_session()
await agent.run("Remember that I prefer vegetarian food.", session=session)

RawAgent may auto-add InMemoryHistoryProvider("memory") in specific cases, but add it explicitly when you want deterministic local memory behavior.

Custom context provider

Use custom context providers when you need to inject dynamic instructions/messages or extract state after runs.

from typing import Any

from agent_framework import AgentSession, BaseContextProvider, SessionContext


class UserPreferenceProvider(BaseContextProvider):
    def __init__(self) -> None:
        super().__init__("user-preferences")

    async def before_run(
        self,
        *,
        agent: Any,
        session: AgentSession,
        context: SessionContext,
        state: dict[str, Any],
    ) -> None:
        if favorite := state.get("favorite_food"):
            context.extend_instructions(self.source_id, f"User's favorite food is {favorite}.")

    async def after_run(
        self,
        *,
        agent: Any,
        session: AgentSession,
        context: SessionContext,
        state: dict[str, Any],
    ) -> None:
        for message in context.input_messages:
            text = (message.text or "") if hasattr(message, "text") else ""
            if isinstance(text, str) and "favorite food is" in text.lower():
                state["favorite_food"] = text.split("favorite food is", 1)[1].strip().rstrip(".")

Custom history provider

History providers are context providers specialized for loading/storing messages.

from collections.abc import Sequence
from typing import Any

from agent_framework import BaseHistoryProvider, Message


class DatabaseHistoryProvider(BaseHistoryProvider):
    def __init__(self, db: Any) -> None:
        super().__init__("db-history", load_messages=True)
        self._db = db

    async def get_messages(
        self,
        session_id: str | None,
        *,
        state: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
        **kwargs: Any,
    ) -> list[Message]:
        key = (state or {}).get(self.source_id, {}).get("history_key", session_id or "default")
        rows = await self._db.load_messages(key)
        return [Message.from_dict(row) for row in rows]

    async def save_messages(
        self,
        session_id: str | None,
        messages: Sequence[Message],
        *,
        state: dict[str, Any] | None = None,
        **kwargs: Any,
    ) -> None:
        if not messages:
            return
        if state is not None:
            key = state.setdefault(self.source_id, {}).setdefault("history_key", session_id or "default")
        else:
            key = session_id or "default"
        await self._db.save_messages(key, [m.to_dict() for m in messages])

Important

In Python, you can configure multiple history providers, but only one should use load_messages=True. Use additional providers for diagnostics/evals with load_messages=False and store_context_messages=True so they capture context from other providers alongside input/output.

Example pattern:

primary = DatabaseHistoryProvider(db)
audit = InMemoryHistoryProvider("audit", load_messages=False, store_context_messages=True)
agent = OpenAIChatClient().as_agent(context_providers=[primary, audit])

Next steps

Storage