Persistent Import Error with BaseTool in Colab Environment

CrewAI Community Support
1 
Hello CrewAI Community,

I'm encountering a persistent `ImportError` when trying to set up a CrewAI project in a Google Colab environment, specifically related to importing `BaseTool` from the `crewai_tools` library. I've followed the standard installation steps and project structure (defining custom tools in separate files), but I'm consistently hitting this import issue.

**Problem Description:**

When running my main CrewAI script which imports custom tools defined in separate `.py` files within a `./tools` directory, I get the following error:

ImportError: cannot import name ‘BaseTool’ from ‘crewai_tools’ (/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages/crewai_tools/init.py)

In some instances, the error message has also been:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘crewai_tools.agents’

The traceback consistently points to the import statement for `BaseTool` within my tool definition files (e.g., `tools/research_tools.py`).

**Environment Details:**

*   **Platform:** Google Colab
*   **Python Version:** 3.12.11
*   **Installed Library Versions:**
    *   `crewai-tools`: 0.73.1
    *   `crewai`: 0.193.2
    *   `langchain-google-genai`: 2.1.12
    *   (Other installed libraries as per the `!pip install` command)

**Project Structure (relevant parts):**

My project follows a structure where custom tools are defined in files within a `./tools` directory. For example, `tools/research_tools.py` contains:

```python
# Attempt 1 (causes ImportError: cannot import name 'BaseTool' from 'crewai_tools')
# from crewai_tools import BaseTool, SerperDevTool

# Attempt 2 (causes ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'crewai_tools.agents')
from crewai_tools.agents import BaseTool
from crewai_tools import SerperDevTool

deep_research_tool = SerperDevTool()

(Note: I’ve tried both import paths based on troubleshooting.)

The main script imports these tools like this:

# ... other imports
from tools.research_tools import deep_research_tool
from tools.file_tools import file_write_tool, pdf_conversion_tool
from tools.presentation_tools import powerpoint_tool
# ... rest of the crew setup and kickoff

Steps Taken So Far:

  1. Installed libraries using !pip install crewai crewai_tools langchain_google_genai python-dotenv fpdf2 python-pptx. The output shows requirements are satisfied.

  2. Created ./tools and ./outputs directories using !mkdir -p.

  3. Created the tool files (research_tools.py, file_tools.py, presentation_tools.py) in the ./tools directory by writing the code content to them.

  4. Attempted to import BaseTool using both from crewai_tools import BaseTool and from crewai_tools.agents import BaseTool within the tool files.

  5. Restarted the Colab runtime multiple times and re-executed all cells sequentially in the correct order (install, mkdir, create tool files, set env vars, run main script).

  6. Checked the installed crewai-tools version (0.73.1).

  7. Reviewed the official CrewAI documentation and a Colab tutorial ( Google Colab ) which shows from crewai_tools import BaseTool being used successfully.

Despite these steps, the import error for BaseTool persists when the main script tries to import the tool files.

Could this be a known issue with version 0.73.1 in Colab, or is there something specific about the Colab environment setup that I might be missing regarding importing from external files within a package structure?

Any guidance or suggestions from the community would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.