Getting Started with Jido Action

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Prerequisites: Basic Elixir knowledge • Mix project setup

Jido Action is a composable action framework with AI integration for building autonomous agent systems and complex workflows. This guide will get you productive in 15 minutes.

Installation

Add to your mix.exs:

def deps do
  [{:jido_action, "~> 1.0"}]
end

Run mix deps.get.

Your First Action

Create a simple email validator:

defmodule MyApp.Actions.ValidateEmail do
  use Jido.Action,
    name: "validate_email",
    description: "Validates email format",
    schema: [
      email: [type: :string, required: true, doc: "Email to validate"]
    ]

  def run(%{email: email}, _context) do
    if String.contains?(email, "@") do
      {:ok, %{valid: true, email: String.downcase(email)}}
    else
      {:error, Jido.Action.Error.execution_error("Invalid email format")}
    end
  end
end

Execute Your Action

# Direct execution
{:ok, result} = MyApp.Actions.ValidateEmail.run(%{email: "USER@EXAMPLE.COM"}, %{})
# => {:ok, %{valid: true, email: "user@example.com"}}

# With execution engine (production-ready)
{:ok, result} = Jido.Exec.run(
  MyApp.Actions.ValidateEmail,
  %{email: "user@example.com"}, 
  %{},
  timeout: 5000,
  max_retries: 2
)

Use Built-in Tools

Jido Action includes 25+ pre-built actions:

# File operations  
{:ok, _} = Jido.Exec.run(Jido.Tools.Files.WriteFile, %{
  path: "/tmp/test.txt",
  content: "Hello World!",
  create_dirs: false,
  mode: :write
})

# Arithmetic
{:ok, result} = Jido.Exec.run(Jido.Tools.Arithmetic.Add, %{value: 5, amount: 3})
# => {:ok, %{result: 8}}

Chain Actions Together

# Sequential execution with data flow
{:ok, final_result} = Jido.Exec.Chain.chain(
  [MyApp.Actions.ValidateEmail, MyApp.Actions.SendWelcomeEmail],
  %{email: "user@example.com"},
  context: %{user_id: "123"}
)

Next Steps

→ Your Second Action - Add schemas, error handling, and tests
→ Actions - Understand the framework architecture
→ Built-in Tools - Explore all available tools

Sample Repository

Clone the example project:

git clone https://github.com/agentjido/jido_action_examples
cd jido_action_examples
mix deps.get && mix test

Next: Your Second Action →