Platform Issue: Agent-Level MCP Initialization Blocks All Topics for Users Without Connection Access
I’m writing to report a significant platform behavior issue we’ve encountered with MCP (Model Context Protocol) server initialization in Copilot Studio that is severely impacting end-user experience. ENVIRONMENT • Platform: Microsoft Copilot Studio • Deployment Channel: Microsoft Teams • Agent Type: Custom Agent (EdiSENSE DEV) • MCP Server: Atlassian Confluence-Jira MCP • Affected Users: Users without Confluence/Jira access entitlements PROBLEM SUMMARY When an MCP server is registered at the agent level in Copilot Studio, it appears to be initialized globally before any topic routing occurs. If a user’s MCP connection is in a Not Connected state — even if their query has absolutely nothing to do with that MCP server - the agent gets stuck in an authentication loop, repeatedly prompting: “Let’s get you connected first. Open connection manager to verify your credentials. Once the connection is ready, retry your request.” The user is shown Retry / Cancel buttons, and the agent never proceeds to route the query to the appropriate topic. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Register an MCP server (e.g., Confluence-Jira) at the agent level in Copilot Studio 2. Deploy the agent to Microsoft Teams 3. Log in as a user who does NOT have access to the MCP-connected service (e.g., no Confluence license) 4. Ask the agent any question completely unrelated to the MCP service 5. Observe: Agent does not route to any topic. Instead, it loops on MCP connection prompt indefinitely EXPECTED BEHAVIOR • MCP initialization failure for a specific service should NOT block unrelated topic routing • The agent should gracefully degrade - if an MCP connection is unavailable for a user, it should skip that MCP and continue routing the query to relevant topics • There should be a way to scope MCP connections to specific topics, or at minimum, mark them as optional/non-blocking ACTUAL BEHAVIOR • Agent-level MCP initialization blocks the entire conversation flow • Users without MCP access cannot use ANY functionality of the agent, even features completely unrelated to the MCP service • There is no graceful fallback or bypass mechanism available to agent builders BUSINESS IMPACT This is a critical gap for enterprise deployments where: • Not all users have access to every integrated service • Agents serve a broad user base with varying entitlements • Admins have no control over MCP initialization order or failure handling In our case, a large portion of our Teams users are completely locked out of the agent’s core functionality simply because they don’t have a Confluence license - even though they never intended to use Confluence-related features. FEATURE REQUEST / SUGGESTED RESOLUTION 1. Allow MCP servers to be scoped at the topic level, not just agent level 2. Introduce an optional flag for MCP connections so initialization failure is non-blocking 3. Provide agent builders with a connection status condition node in the topic flow to handle MCP failures gracefully 4. At minimum, allow the Cancel button in the auth prompt to fall through to normal topic routing I’d appreciate any guidance on whether there is a current workaround, or if this is a known limitation on the roadmap for resolution. Thank you for your time and support.
How to use agents response as an input to a topic?
Hi I would like to use the agents reponse to store it in a word or excel file. For that, I would like to use the response provided by the agent, pass it on to my custom topic which triggers an agentic workflow to store the agents response in a word or excel file. I cannot sort out how to pick the agents response and pass it on to my custom topic, any help will be highly appreciated, thanks!
