agent-express

Minimalist middleware framework for building AI agents in TypeScript.

Documentation · Getting Started · API Reference

Why agent-express

Three concepts: Agent, Session, and Middleware. That's the entire framework.

Every backend developer knows use(). Agent Express applies the Express.js middleware pattern to AI agents. One (ctx, next) interface replaces the 15-20 concepts you'll find in alternatives. If you've built an Express app, you already know the mental model.

Quick Start

npm install agent-express

import { Agent, tools } from "agent-express"
import { z } from "zod"

const agent = new Agent({
  model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
  instructions: "You are a helpful assistant.",
})

agent.use(tools.function({
  name: "greet",
  description: "Greet someone by name",
  schema: z.object({ name: z.string() }),
  execute: async ({ name }) => `Hello, ${name}!`,
}))

const { text } = await agent.run({ input: "Greet Alice" })
console.log(text)

Features

• Middleware architecture -- 5 onion hooks (agent, session, turn, model, tool), one (ctx, next) pattern
• Built-in guards -- budget caps, input/output validation, timeouts, iteration limits, HITL approval
• Observability -- structured logging, OpenTelemetry metrics and traces, token tracking, tool recording
• 12+ model providers -- any AI SDK provider via "provider/model" string (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, Groq, and more)
• Model routing -- complexity-based model selection across providers
• Memory management -- context window compaction with 5 strategies
• Testing toolkit -- TestModel, FunctionModel, capture, record/replay, snapshots
• MCP integration -- connect to MCP servers as tool sources
• HTTP adapter -- SSE streaming out of the box
• CLI -- agent-express dev with hot reload, agent-express test with CI output
• Structured output -- Zod schema validation on model responses

Middleware Namespaces

Compose capabilities by stacking middleware:

import { Agent, guard, observe, model, memory, dev } from "agent-express"

const agent = new Agent({ model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6" })

agent
  .use(guard.budget({ limit: 1.00 }))
  .use(guard.approve({ approve: myApprovalFn }))
  .use(observe.usage())
  .use(model.retry())
  .use(memory.compaction({ maxTokens: 8192 }))
  .use(dev.console())

| Namespace | Middleware | Description | |---|---|---| | guard | budget, input, output, maxIterations, timeout, approve, piiRedact, rateLimit | Safety, cost, and compliance | | observe | usage, tools, duration, log, metrics, traces | Monitoring, metrics, and tracing | | search | file, web | Document search (RAG) and web search | | model | retry, router | LLM call management | | memory | compaction, store | Context window and session persistence | | tools | function, mcp | Tool registration | | dev | console | Development utilities |

Presets (separate packages):

| Package | Preset | Description | |---|---|---| | @agent-express/preset-support | supportBot() | Production support bot with RAG, PII, escalation, tone |

Writing Custom Middleware

A plain function passed to .use() becomes a turn hook:

agent.use(async (ctx, next) => {
  console.log(`Turn ${ctx.turnIndex}: ${ctx.input[0]?.content}`)
  await next()
  console.log(`Response: ${ctx.output}`)
})

For multiple hooks, return a Middleware object:

import type { Middleware } from "agent-express"

const analytics: Middleware = {
  name: "analytics",
  state: {
    "analytics:turns": { default: 0 },
    "analytics:cost": { default: 0, reducer: (prev, delta) => prev + delta },
  },
  turn: async (ctx, next) => {
    ctx.state["analytics:turns"] = ctx.turnIndex + 1
    await next()
  },
  model: async (ctx, next) => {
    const response = await next()
    ctx.state["analytics:cost"] = response.usage.inputTokens * 0.000003
    return response
  },
}

agent.use(analytics)

The 5 hooks form an onion — code before next() runs on the way in, code after runs on the way out:

agent → session → turn → model → [LLM call]
                       → tool  → [tool execution]

See built-in middleware for real-world examples: guard.budget, observe.usage, model.retry, memory.compaction

Sessions and Streaming

Multi-turn conversations with session state:

await agent.init()
const session = agent.session()

const r1 = await session.run({ input: "My name is Alice" })
const r2 = await session.run({ input: "What's my name?" })
// r2.text → "Your name is Alice"

await agent.dispose()

Streaming events as they happen:

for await (const event of agent.run({ input: "Hello" })) {
  if (event.type === "model:chunk") process.stdout.write(event.text)
  if (event.type === "tool:start") console.log(`Calling ${event.tool}...`)
}

Testing

Mock LLM calls in tests with agent-express/test:

import { TestModel, testAgent } from "agent-express/test"

const model = new TestModel([
  { text: "Hello! How can I help?" },
])

const result = await testAgent(agent, {
  model,
  input: "Hi",
})
expect(result.text).toContain("Hello")

Record and replay real API calls:

import { RecordModel, ReplayModel } from "agent-express/test"

// Record once (hits real API)
const record = new RecordModel("anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6")
await agent.run({ input: "test", model: record })
record.save("tests/cassettes/greeting.json")

// Replay forever (no API calls)
const replay = ReplayModel.load("tests/cassettes/greeting.json")
await agent.run({ input: "test", model: replay })

Comparison

| Feature | agent-express | Mastra | Vercel AI SDK | LangChain.js | |---|---|---|---|---| | Core concepts | 3 | 15-20 | 5-8 | 30+ | | Extension model | Middleware (ctx, next) | Processors, Tools, Workflows | Hooks, Providers | Chains, Agents, Tools, Memory | | Built-in testing | Yes | No | No | No | | Cost control | guard.budget() | Manual | Manual | Manual | | TypeScript | Strict, ESM only | TypeScript | TypeScript | TypeScript |

Package Entry Points

agent-express       -- Agent, Session, middleware namespaces, errors
agent-express/http  -- createHandler() SSE adapter
agent-express/test  -- TestModel, FunctionModel, testAgent()

CLI

npx create-agent-express                             # interactive wizard
npx create-agent-express --template support-bot      # template scaffold
npx agent-express dev [entry]                       # terminal chat + hot reload
npx agent-express test                              # agent test runner
npx agent-express test --ci                         # JUnit XML output for CI

Links

• Contributing
• Changelog
• Security Policy
• Code of Conduct
• License