[Feature] flow: Agentic LLMFlow Middleware for Dynamic Tool-Driven Reasoning

[keli-wen]

✨ Feature Summary

Introduce a new LLMFlow class: an agentic runtime that leverages LLMs for dynamic, tool-driven reasoning within QuantMind. This will allow the framework to autonomously plan and execute multi-step financial analysis tasks by orchestrating tools in response to user input, inspired by modern agent design patterns.

We will primarily take smolagents repo as base to develop our LLMFlow.

🎯 Motivation

The current BaseFlow supports only statically orchestrated task flows, limiting the framework's ability to respond adaptively to user goals or leverage external capabilities. By adding LLMFlow, QuantMind can:

• Dynamically select and use tools based on LLM-driven reasoning
• Support autonomous, multi-step task execution (e.g., query data, analyze, compare, summarize)
• Integrate tightly with the agentic ecosystem, including future third-party or open-source toolkits

📋 Detailed Description

LLMFlow will:

• Operate in an agentic loop, maintaining structured message history (not just a string scratchpad)
• Delegate action planning to the LLM, which returns either a final answer or a list of tool calls
• Execute tool calls asynchronously and append their results to the history for further reasoning
• Support configuration via LLMFlowConfig, specifying the reasoning LLM and the set of available tools (as BaseTool instances)

🔧 Proposed Implementation

• Add LLMFlowConfig (in quantmind/config/flows.py) to specify the reasoning LLM and available tools
• Implement LLMFlow (in quantmind/flows/llm_flow.py), following agent middleware patterns:
  • Asynchronous reasoning loop with structured message history
  • Tool call schema generation and execution via native LLM APIs
  • Clear error handling and extensibility for new tool types
• Provide usage and extension documentation

API Design

# quantmind/config/flows.py
class LLMFlowConfig(BaseFlowConfig):
    reasoning_llm_identifier: str
    tools: List[BaseTool]

# quantmind/flows/llm_flow.py
class LLMFlow(BaseFlow):
    async def run(self, initial_input: str, max_iterations: int = 5) -> Any:
        ...

Configuration

llmflow:
  reasoning_llm_identifier: "gpt-4-turbo"
  tools:
    - name: "company_financials"
    - name: "data_fetcher"

🎨 User Experience

Users can define a flow that reasons and acts using LLMs and a configurable set of tools. Complex tasks like “Summarize this report and compare key metrics with last quarter” become possible with minimal code changes.

📊 Use Cases

1. Automated Report Analysis: Fetch, analyze, and summarize financial reports using multiple tools in sequence, determined at runtime.
2. Conversational Data Exploration: Users ask natural language queries, and the agent dynamically selects tools to pull, process, and present data.
3. Third-Party Tool Integration: Easily plug in new tools (e.g., external APIs) for domain-specific analytics.

🔗 Related Issues

• Relates to [Feature] tool: BaseTool design and implementation #47 (BaseTool design and implementation)

Implementation Considerations

Breaking Changes

• This feature would introduce breaking changes
• This feature is backward compatible

Dependencies

• Requires new dependencies
• Uses existing dependencies only

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Checklist

• I have searched existing issues to avoid duplicates
• I have provided a clear and detailed description
• I have explained the motivation and use cases
• I have considered the implementation approach
• I have thought about potential breaking changes