Zod Schema Support

You can pass a Zod schema anywhere the SDK accepts a schema — agent({ schema }) and defineTool({ schema }).

Setup

Install the two peer dependencies:

npm install zod zod-to-json-schema

Structured output with Zod

Define your output type once and reuse it for both schema generation and TypeScript inference:

import { agent } from '@daedalus-ai-dev/ai-sdk';
import { z } from 'zod';

const Review = z.object({
  score:    z.number().int().min(1).max(10),
  approved: z.boolean(),
  issues:   z.array(z.string()),
});

const response = await agent({
  instructions: 'Evaluate the content.',
  schema: Review,
}).prompt<z.infer<typeof Review>>('Rate: "The quick brown fox."');

// response.structured is fully typed as z.infer<typeof Review>
console.log(response.structured.score);    // 7
console.log(response.structured.approved); // false
console.log(response.structured.issues);   // ["Too short", ...]

Required fields

With Zod, all fields are automatically required unless you mark them .optional(). This avoids the common pitfall with the fluent builder where forgetting .required() causes fields to be missing from the response.

Tool schemas with Zod

Reuse existing Zod schemas instead of redeclaring them with the fluent builder:

import { defineTool } from '@daedalus-ai-dev/ai-sdk';
import { z } from 'zod';

// Existing schema from your validation layer
const SearchInput = z.object({
  query:  z.string().describe('Search query'),
  limit:  z.number().int().min(1).max(50).default(10).optional(),
});

const searchTool = defineTool({
  name: 'search',
  description: 'Search the knowledge base.',
  schema: SearchInput,
  handle: async (input) => {
    const results = await db.search(String(input.query), Number(input.limit ?? 10));
    return JSON.stringify(results);
  },
});

Comparison

	Fluent builder	Zod schema
Required fields	Must call .required() explicitly	Required by default (.optional() to opt out)
TypeScript types	Inferred from generic T at call site	z.infer<typeof Schema> — reuse existing types
Reuse existing schemas	No	Yes
Zero extra dependencies	Yes	Requires zod + zod-to-json-schema

Both approaches are fully supported and can be mixed within the same project.