Why it matters

Wrong deployment choice affects cost and ops. Understanding both enables smart selection.

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The architecture

Cloud Run: build container, deploy. Handles scaling automatically. Pay per request.

Vertex AI Agent Engine: managed agent runtime. Handles session state, scaling, monitoring.

ADK deployment optionsCloud Runserverless containerVertex AI Agent Enginemanaged runtimeLocal devadk web / adk runAgent Engine simplifies ops; Cloud Run gives more control; pick by needs
Deployment targets.
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How it works end to end

Cloud Run: control over container. Use for custom setup, integrations.

Agent Engine: managed sessions, evaluation, scaling. Vendor lock-in trade-off.

Local dev: adk web (UI) or adk run (CLI) for iterating locally.

Auth: ADC (Application Default Credentials) for Google APIs.