How to Test OpenAI Agents SDK Agents: Handoffs, Guardrails and Tool Calls

OpenAI’s Evals dashboard and API will become read-only on October 31, 2026 and shut down on November 30, alongside Agent Builder, prompting teams to move agent workflows and regression testing into repositories using the Agents SDK, ChatGPT Workspace Agents, or other tools. Effective Agents SDK testing is presented as a three-layer process: deterministic offline wiring tests using ScriptedModel to validate handoffs, tools, and guardrails; repeated staging tests with real models to assess model decisions; and outcome checks that inspect actual changes to ledgers, files, APIs, or other systems. The guide emphasizes that correct-sounding replies do not prove successful actions, illustrating how an agent can claim a refund was issued without writing anything to the billing ledger. It recommends asserting the final agent, handoff events, guardrail behavior, tool outputs, and write counts, while accounting for SDK behavior such as specialist input guardrails not running after handoffs and function-tool errors being converted into messages that allow runs to continue. TestMu AI Agent Assurance is described as a pre-alpha staging tool that evaluates real agent workflows against functional and adversarial scenarios using evidence from tool calls and system changes, while OpenAI Evals users are encouraged to export existing datasets and graders before shutdown and incorporate deterministic, model-level, and outcome-based checks into CI pipelines.

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