Add notebooks to show users how to get started with the toolkit and build agents (#656)

This PR introduces a series of notebooks along with a few simple tool and agent examples to show new users how to bring an agent into the toolkit and develop new tools and agents using the toolkit.

## By Submitting this PR I confirm:
- I am familiar with the [Contributing Guidelines](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Agent-Toolkit/blob/develop/docs/source/resources/contributing.md).
- We require that all contributors "sign-off" on their commits. This certifies that the contribution is your original work, or you have rights to submit it under the same license, or a compatible license.
  - Any contribution which contains commits that are not Signed-Off will not be accepted.
- When the PR is ready for review, new or existing tests cover these changes.
- When the PR is ready for review, the documentation is up to date with these changes.

Authors:
  - https://github.com/cdgamarose-nv
  - Matthew Penn (https://github.com/mpenn)
  - Will Killian (https://github.com/willkill07)

Approvers:
  - Matthew Penn (https://github.com/mpenn)
  - Will Killian (https://github.com/willkill07)

URL: #656

Author: cdgamarose-nv

.gitignore

@@ -214,6 +214,7 @@ tags
 deploy/compose/volumes
 examples/RAG/simple_rag/deploy/volumes
 examples/RAG/compose/volumes
+examples/notebooks/examples/retail_sales_agent/deploy/volumes/
 
 # Mac Metadata
 **/*.DS_Store

ci/scripts/copyright.py

@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@
     re.compile(r"PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md"),  # Ignore the PR template,
     re.compile(r"[^ \/\n]*conda/environments/.*\.yaml$"),  # Ignore generated environment files
     re.compile(r"^LICENSE\.md$"),  # Ignore the license file itself
+    re.compile(r"^examples/.*/data/.*.md$"),  # Ignore data files in examples
 ]
 
 # this will break starting at year 10000, which is probably OK :)

ci/scripts/github/checks.sh

@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ set -e
 GITHUB_SCRIPT_DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" &> /dev/null && pwd )"
 
 source ${GITHUB_SCRIPT_DIR}/common.sh
+get_lfs_files
 
 create_env group:dev group:docs extra:examples
 

ci/scripts/path_checks.py

@@ -94,17 +94,20 @@
     "copy/paste",
     "edit/score",
     "file/console",
+    "files/functions",
     "I/O",
     "Input/Observation",
     "input/output",
     "inputs/outputs",
     "JavaScript/TypeScript",
     "JSON/YAML",
+    "LTE/5G",
     "output/jobs/job_",
     "predictions/forecasts",
     "provider/method.",
     "RagaAI/Catalyst",
     "read/write",
+    "run/host",
     "run/serve",
     "search/edit/score/select",
     "size/time",
@@ -141,6 +144,11 @@
         r"^examples/evaluation_and_profiling/simple_web_query_eval/.*configs/eval_upload.yml",
         r"^input/langsmith.json",
     ),
+    # ignore notebook-relative paths
+    (
+        r"^examples/notebooks/retail_sales_agent/.*configs/",
+        r"^\./retail_sales_agent/data/",
+    ),
     # ignore generated files
     (
         r"^docs/",
@@ -209,7 +217,7 @@
 }
 
 # File extensions to check paths
-EXTENSIONS: tuple[str, ...] = ('.md', '.rst', '.yml', '.yaml', '.json', '.toml', '.ini', '.conf', '.cfg')
+EXTENSIONS: tuple[str, ...] = ('.ipynb', '.md', '.rst', '.yml', '.yaml', '.json', '.toml', '.ini', '.conf', '.cfg')
 
 URI_OR_PATH_REGEX = re.compile(r'((([^:/?# ]+):)?(//([^/?# ]*))([^?# ]*)(\?([^# ]*))?(#([^ ]*))?'
                                r'|(\.?\.?/?)(([^ \t`=\'"]+/)+[^ \t`=\'"]+))')

examples/README.md

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ Each NVIDIA NeMo Agent toolkit example demonstrates a particular feature or use
   - [Human In The Loop (HITL)](#human-in-the-loop-hitl)
   - [Memory](#memory)
   - [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](#model-context-protocol-mcp)
+  - [Notebooks](#notebooks)
   - [Object Store](#object-store)
   - [Observability](#observability)
   - [Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)](#retrieval-augmented-generation-rag)
@@ -92,6 +93,10 @@ To run the examples, install the NeMo Agent toolkit from source, if you haven't
 ### Model Context Protocol (MCP)
 - **[`simple_calculator_mcp`](MCP/simple_calculator_mcp/README.md)**: Demonstrates Model Context Protocol support using the basic simple calculator example
 
+### Notebooks
+- **[`first_search_agent`](notebooks/first_search_agent/)**: Demonstrates how to bring an existing agent from a framework like LangChain into this toolkit
+- **[`retail_sales_agent`](notebooks/retail_sales_agent/)**: A simple retail agent that showcases how to incrementally add tools and agents to build a multi-agent system
+
 ### Object Store
 - **[`user_report`](object_store/user_report/README.md)**: User report generation and storage system using object store (S3, MySQL, and/or memory)