Lab 02 — HTTP Tools Integration; Strands Agentic AI

Building My First AI Agent with Strands Agents: Part 1 link

🎯 Objective

Give your agent the ability to fetch live data from the internet using the http_request tool. In this lab the agent calls the US National Weather Service API to answer a weather question.

📖 Background

Most useful agents need to reach out to external services. The http_request tool lets an agent make GET/POST/PUT/DELETE requests to any URL. The agent decides which URL to call, parses the response, and presents it in natural language.

🔑 Key Concepts

⚙️ Prerequisites

1. AWS credentials configured
2. Internet connectivity (the agent calls api.weather.gov)
3. Dependencies installed (uv sync)

Lab 02 : Agentic ai with http_request tool

# This lab is to teach you about http_request tool

from strands import Agent
from strands.models.bedrock import BedrockModel
from strands_tools import file_read, file_write, http_request

# Configure the Bedrock model
bedrock_model = BedrockModel(
    # Set your preferred model ID here (e.g., "global.amazon.nova-2-lite-v1:0")
    model_id="<YOUR_MODEL_ID>",
    region_name="eu-west-2",
    temperature=0.3,
)


system_prompt = """
Weather Information
    - You can also make HTTP requests to the National Weather Service API.
    - Process and display weather forecast data for locations in the United States.
"""

# - When retrieving weather information, first get coordinates using https://api.weather.gov/points/{latitude},{longitude},  or
#         https://api.weather.gov/points/{zipcode}, then use the returned forecast URL. You can make additional http requests as well.

# Create the agent with tools
local_agent = Agent(
    system_prompt=system_prompt, # Define a system Prompt
    model=bedrock_model,
    tools=[http_request],  # Add your custom tools here
)


local_agent("what is the weather in new york?")

▶️ How to Run

uv run labs/02-http-tools/agent.py

🧪 Exercises

1. Try a different city — Change "new york" to another US city and see if the agent resolves the correct API endpoint.
2. Combine tools — Add file_write so the agent saves the weather report to a file.
3. Non-US weather — The NWS API only covers the US. Modify the system prompt to use a global weather API like OpenWeatherMap instead.
4. Error handling — Disconnect from the internet and observe how the agent reacts.

ALL LAB EXCERSIZE GitHub Notes

📚 Further Reading

• Strands Tools — http_request
• National Weather Service API