Describe the bug
This mainly affects Windows OS deployments.
The code generated by the adk deploy command does not take into consideration Windows paths and when a folder starts with "u" then "\u" will be considered as an unicode character.
To Reproduce
Please share a minimal code and data to reproduce your problem.
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Create a folder in windows with a starting character of u like "user_agent"
- Run 'adk deploy "user agent" user_agent`
- Provide error or stacktrace
{
"textPayload": "SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 36-37: truncated \\uXXXX escape",
"insertId": "6970cb7c00040ef3fdf26d7d",
"resource": {
"type": "aiplatform.googleapis.com/ReasoningEngine",
"labels": {
"location": "us-central1",
"resource_container": "238752334795",
"reasoning_engine_id": "8893603210917314560"
}
},
"timestamp": "2026-01-21T12:50:04.265971Z",
"logName": "projects/segment-prod-348613/logs/aiplatform.googleapis.com%2Freasoning_engine_stderr",
"receiveTimestamp": "2026-01-21T12:50:04.594382789Z"
}
Expected behavior
Agent folders starting with "u" characters should deploy without issues.
Screenshots
The generated agent_engine_app.py, VS Code also warns about the unicode Got unexpected unicode

Desktop (please complete the following information):
- OS: Windows
- Python version(python -V): 3.12.0
- ADK version(pip show google-adk): 1.22.1
Fix
try:
# This path is for local loading.
root_agent = config_agent_utils.from_config(
r"D:...\adk-agents\user_agent/root_agent.yaml"
)
Describe the bug
This mainly affects Windows OS deployments.
The code generated by the adk deploy command does not take into consideration Windows paths and when a folder starts with "u" then "\u" will be considered as an unicode character.
To Reproduce
Please share a minimal code and data to reproduce your problem.
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
{ "textPayload": "SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 36-37: truncated \\uXXXX escape", "insertId": "6970cb7c00040ef3fdf26d7d", "resource": { "type": "aiplatform.googleapis.com/ReasoningEngine", "labels": { "location": "us-central1", "resource_container": "238752334795", "reasoning_engine_id": "8893603210917314560" } }, "timestamp": "2026-01-21T12:50:04.265971Z", "logName": "projects/segment-prod-348613/logs/aiplatform.googleapis.com%2Freasoning_engine_stderr", "receiveTimestamp": "2026-01-21T12:50:04.594382789Z" }Expected behavior
Agent folders starting with "u" characters should deploy without issues.
Screenshots

The generated
agent_engine_app.py, VS Code also warns about the unicodeGot unexpected unicodeDesktop (please complete the following information):
Fix
try:
# This path is for local loading.
root_agent = config_agent_utils.from_config(
r"D:...\adk-agents\user_agent/root_agent.yaml"
)