How can I determine what tools are available to an Agent deployed on Agent Engine?

[Jackson_Irby]

Hello, I am trying to identify the tools that an agent can use that is deployed on the Vertex AI Agent Engine. Right now when querying the agents via the API or looking in the console, I am only able to see some limited metadata about the available agents. Is it possible to get some additional details about the tools that the agent is able to use? By tools I specifically mean the tool definitions deployed as part of the adk or other agent framework.

[QASIMALOUDAT]

Hello,

I am want to telling you,that from vertex ai

You can name the agent and learning it as you want

[ilnardo92]

Hey @Jackson_Irby

thanks for bringing this advanced topic up in the Build with AI > Agents channel!

You’ve hit on a common need when working with complex agents. While I haven’t specifically tested that exact integration path, the best practice for exposing custom agent functionality is to use a Custom Method pattern.

My recommendation would be to try creating a custom method, say get_tools(), directly within your custom agent class. Then, expose that method using the official Custom Method pattern documented here: Custom Methods in Agent Engine.

This is the canonical way to extend the Agent Engine’s behavior. Let me know how that works out—I’d love to collaborate and turn your findings into a article in this community!