FAQ

Is Helix free? Yes. Apache 2.0 license, no paid tier, no usage limits imposed by Helix itself (only your own budget config and provider costs apply).

Does Helix support MCP servers? Yes — Helix ships a native MCP client. Connect to any MCP server and its tools become available to your agents automatically. See MCP Tools.

Can I use Helix with LangChain, CrewAI, or AutoGen agents I already built? Yes. helix.wrap_llm(), helix.from_langchain(), helix.from_crewai(), and helix.from_autogen() wrap existing code from those frameworks with Helix's cost governance, caching, and observability — no rewrite required. See Framework Adapters.

Does Helix work with local models? Yes, via Ollama (ollama/* or local/* model strings) or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Azure, custom base URLs), with no environment variable requirements.

How is Helix different from LangGraph? Helix ships a LangGraph-compatible StateGraph (same START/END API) plus things LangGraph doesn't provide out of the box: hard budget limits, semantic caching, multi-tier memory, and a built-in eval suite. See the Framework Comparison table above.

What does "hard budget limits" actually mean? Every agent run can be capped with BudgetConfig(budget_usd=...). If a run would exceed that cap, Helix raises BudgetExceededError instead of continuing to spend — no silent overage.

Does Helix require an API key to try it? No — Google Gemini and Groq both have usable free tiers, and helix doctor will tell you which providers are configured.

Can a multi-agent crew still blow through budget if a tool call keeps failing and retrying? Not if you wrap it with Helix: helix.from_crewai(crew, budget_usd=5.00) (or from_langchain/from_autogen) puts a hard BudgetConfig-backed cap on top of the existing crew and raises BudgetExceededError the moment spend would cross that line, no matter how many times a failing tool call retries. See Framework Adapters.

Does a multi-agent Group Chat need a manual reply cap to stop token spend from multiplying? No — helix.GroupChat takes max_rounds, termination_keyword, and termination_fn directly, so you can bound a conversation without hand-rolling an AutoGen-style max_consecutive_auto_reply limit. See Group Chat.

How would I notice an agent getting expensive before the bill arrives, not after? Every agent can emit live cost telemetry through on_event — the step_end event carries cost_so_far — and BudgetConfig(warn_at_pct=0.8) fires a warning at 80% of budget well before BudgetExceededError would trigger. See Event Hooks and Budget Enforcement.

How do I keep a human in the loop instead of letting agents run fully autonomously? Add a helix.HumanAgent to any GroupChat — it prompts the terminal for your input each turn just like any other agent in the rotation, giving you a manual checkpoint instead of a fully autonomous loop. Pair it with Helix's guardrails (prompt injection blocking, audit log) for a record of what ran. See Group Chat and Guardrails.