From Concept to Code: Building Production-Ready Multi-Agent Systems with Microsoft Foundry
We have reached a critical inflection point in AI development. Within the Microsoft Foundry ecosystem, the core value proposition of "Agents" is shifting decisively—moving from passive content generation to active task execution and process automation. These are no longer just conversational interfaces. They are intelligent entities capable of connecting models, data, and tools to actively execute complex business logic. To support this evolution, Microsoft has introduced a powerful suite of capabilities: the Microsoft Agent Framework for sophisticated orchestration, the Agent V2 SDK, and integrated Microsoft Foundry VSCode Extensions. These innovations provide the tooling necessary to bridge the gap between theoretical research and secure, scalable enterprise landing. But how do you turn these separate components into a cohesive business solution? That is the challenge we address today. This post dives into the practical application of these tools, demonstrating how to connect the dots and transform complex multi-agent concepts into deployed reality. The Scenario: Recruitment through an "Agentic Lens" Let’s ground this theoretical discussion with a real-world scenario that perfectly models a multi-agent environment: The Recruitment Process. By examining recruitment through an agentic lens, we can identify distinct entities with specific mandates: The Recruiter Agent: Tasked with setting boundary conditions (job requirements) and preparing data retrieval mechanisms (interview questions). The Applicant Agent: Objective is to process incoming queries and synthesize the best possible output to meet the recruiter's acceptance criteria. Phase 1: Design Achieving Orchestration via Microsoft Foundry Workflows To bridge the gap between our scenario and technical reality, we start with Foundry Workflows. Workflows serves as the visual integration environment within Foundry. It allows you to build declarative pipelines that seamlessly combine deterministic business logic with the probabilistic nature of autonomous AI agents. By adopting this visual, low-code paradigm, you eliminate the need to write complex orchestration logic from scratch. Workflows empowers you to coordinate specialized agents intuitively, creating adaptive systems that solve complex business problems collaboratively. Visually Orchestrating the Cycle Microsoft Foundry provides an intuitive, web-based drag-and-drop interface. This canvas allows you to integrate specialized AI agents alongside standard procedural logic blocks, transforming abstract ideas into executable processes without writing extensive glue code. To translate our recruitment scenario into a functional workflow, we follow a structured approach: Agent Prerequisites: We pre-configure our specialized agents within Foundry. We create a Recruiter Agent (prompted to generate evaluation criteria) and an Applicant Agent (prompted to synthesize responses). Orchestrating the Interaction: We drag these nodes onto the board and define the data flow. The process begins with the Recruiter generating questions, piping that output directly as input for the Applicant agent. Adding Business Logic: A true workflow requires decision-making. We introduce control flow logic, such as IF/ELSE conditional blocks, to evaluate the recruiter's questions based on predefined criteria. This allows the workflow to branch dynamically—if satisfied, the candidate answers the questions; if not, the questions are regenerated. Alternative: YAML Configuration For developers who prefer a code-first approach or wish to rapidly replicate this logic across environments, Foundry allows you to export the underlying YAML. kind: workflow trigger: kind: OnConversationStart id: trigger_wf actions: - kind: SetVariable id: action-1763742724000 variable: Local.LatestMessage value: =UserMessage(System.LastMessageText) - kind: InvokeAzureAgent id: action-1763736666888 agent: name: HiringManager input: messages: =System.LastMessage output: autoSend: true messages: Local.LatestMessage - kind: Question variable: Local.Input id: action-1763737142539 entity: StringPrebuiltEntity skipQuestionMode: SkipOnFirstExecutionIfVariableHasValue prompt: Boss, can you confirm this ? - kind: ConditionGroup conditions: - condition: =Local.Input="Yes" actions: - kind: InvokeAzureAgent id: action-1763744279421 agent: name: ApplyAgent input: messages: =Local.LatestMessage output: autoSend: true messages: Local.LatestMessage - kind: EndConversation id: action-1763740066007 id: if-action-1763736954795-0 id: action-1763736954795 elseActions: - kind: GotoAction actionId: action-1763736666888 id: action-1763737425562 id: "" name: HRDemo description: "" Simulating the End-to-End Process Once constructed, Foundry provides a robust, built-in testing environment. You can trigger the workflow with sample input data to simulate the end-to-end cycle. This allows you to debug hand-offs and interactions in real-time before writing a single line of application code. Phase 2: Develop From Cloud Canvas to Local Code with VSCode Foundry Workflows excels at rapid prototyping. However, a visual UI is rarely sufficient for enterprise-grade production. The critical question becomes: How do we integrate these visual definitions into a rigorous Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)? While the cloud portal is ideal for design, enterprise application delivery happens in the local IDE. The Microsoft Foundry VSCode Extension bridges this gap. This extension allows developers to: Sync: Pull down workflow definitions from the cloud to your local machine. Inspect: Review the underlying logic in your preferred environment. Scaffold: Rapidly generate the underlying code structures needed to run the flow. This accelerates the shift from "understanding" the flow to "implementing" it. Phase 3: Deploy Productionizing Intelligence with the Microsoft Agent Framework Once the multi-agent orchestration has been validated locally, the final step is transforming it into a shipping application. This is where the Microsoft Agent Framework shines as a runtime engine. It natively ingests the declarative Workflow definitions (YAML) exported from Foundry. This allows artifacts from the prototyping phase to be directly promoted to application deployment. By simply referencing the workflow configuration libraries, you can "hydrate" the entire multi-agent system with minimal boilerplate. Here is the code required to initialize and run the workflow within your application. Note - Check the source code https://github.com/microsoft/Agent-Framework-Samples/tree/main/09.Cases/MicrosoftFoundryWithAITKAndMAF Summary: The Journey from Conversation to Action Microsoft Foundry is more than just a toolbox; it is a comprehensive solution designed to bridge the chasm between theoretical AI research and secure, scalable enterprise applications. In this post, we walked through the three critical stages of modern AI development: Design (Low-Code): Leveraging Foundry Workflows to visually orchestrate specialized agents (Recruiter vs. Applicant) mixed with deterministic business rules. Develop (Local SDLC): Utilizing the VSCode Extension to break down the barriers between the cloud canvas and the local IDE, enabling seamless synchronization and debugging. Deploy (Native Runtime): Using the Microsoft Agent Framework to ingest declarative YAML, realizing the promise of "Configuration as Code" and eliminating tedious logic rewriting. By following this path, developers can move beyond simple content generation and build adaptive, multi-agent systems that drive real business value. Learning Resoures What's Microsoft Foundry (https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-foundry/what-is-azure-ai-foundry?view=foundry) Work with Declarative (Low-code) Agent workflows in Visual Studio Code (preview) (https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-foundry/agents/how-to/vs-code-agents-workflow-low-code?view=foundry) Microsoft Agent Framework(https://github.com/microsoft/agent-framework) Microsoft Foundry VSCode Extension(https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TeamsDevApp.vscode-ai-foundry)Azure Skilling at Microsoft Ignite 2025
The energy at Microsoft Ignite was unmistakable. Developers, architects, and technical decision-makers converged in San Francisco to explore the latest innovations in cloud technology, AI applications, and data platforms. Beyond the keynotes and product announcements was something even more valuable: an integrated skilling ecosystem designed to transform how you build with Azure. This year Azure Skilling at Microsoft Ignite 2025 brought together distinct learning experiences, over 150+ hands-on labs, and multiple pathways to industry-recognized credentials—all designed to help you master skills that matter most in today's AI-driven cloud landscape. Just Launched at Ignite Microsoft Ignite 2025 offered an exceptional array of learning opportunities, each designed to meet developers anywhere on the skilling journey. Whether you joined us in-person or on-demand in the virtual experience, multiple touchpoints are available to deepen your Azure expertise. Ignite 2025 is in the books, but you can still engage with the latest Microsoft skilling opportunities, including: The Azure Skills Challenge provides a gamified learning experience that lets you compete while completing task-based achievements across Azure's most critical technologies. These challenges aren't just about badges and bragging rights—they're carefully designed to help you advance technical skills and prepare for Microsoft role-based certifications. The competitive element adds urgency and motivation, turning learning into an engaging race against the clock and your peers. For those seeking structured guidance, Plans on Learn offer curated sets of content designed to help you achieve specific learning outcomes. These carefully assembled learning journeys include built-in milestones, progress tracking, and optional email reminders to keep you on track. Each plan represents 12-15 hours of focused learning, taking you from concept to capability in areas like AI application development, data platform modernization, or infrastructure optimization. The Microsoft Reactor Azure Skilling Series, running December 3-11, brings skilling to life through engaging video content, mixing regular programming with special Ignite-specific episodes. This series will deliver technical readiness and programming guidance in a livestream presentation that's more digestible than traditional documentation. Whether you're catching episodes live with interactive Q&A or watching on-demand later, you’ll get world-class instruction that makes complex topics approachable. Beyond Ignite: Your Continuous Learning Journey Here's the critical insight that separates Ignite attendees who transform their careers from those who simply collect swag: the real learning begins after the event ends. Microsoft Ignite is your launchpad, not your destination. Every module you start, every lab you complete, and every challenge you tackle connects to a comprehensive learning ecosystem on Microsoft Learn that's available 24/7, 365 days a year. Think of Ignite as your intensive immersion experience—the moment when you gain context, build momentum, and identify the skills that will have the biggest impact on your work. What you do in the weeks and months following determines whether that momentum compounds into career-defining expertise or dissipates into business as usual. For those targeting career advancement through formal credentials, Microsoft Certifications, Applied Skills and AI Skills Navigator, provide globally recognized validation of your expertise. Applied Skills focus on scenario-based competencies, demonstrating that you can build and deploy solutions, not simply answer theoretical questions. Certifications cover role-based scenarios for developers, data engineers, AI engineers, and solution architects. The assessment experiences include performance-based testing in dedicated Azure tenants where you complete real configuration and development tasks. And finally, the NEW AI Skills Navigator is an agentic learning space, bringing together AI-powered skilling experiences and credentials in a single, unified experience with Microsoft, LinkedIn Learning and GitHub – all in one spot Why This Matters: The Competitive Context The cloud skills race is intensifying. While our competitors offer robust training and content, Microsoft's differentiation comes not from having more content—though our 1.4 million module completions last fiscal year and 35,000+ certifications awarded speak to scale—but from integration of services to orchestrate workflows. Only Microsoft offers a truly unified ecosystem where GitHub Copilot accelerates your development, Azure AI services power your applications, and Azure platform services deploy and scale your solutions—all backed by integrated skilling content that teaches you to maximize this connected experience. When you continue your learning journey after Ignite, you're not just accumulating technical knowledge. You're developing fluency in an integrated development environment that no competitor can replicate. You're learning to leverage AI-powered development tools, cloud-native architectures, and enterprise-grade security in ways that compound each other's value. This unified expertise is what transforms individual developers into force-multipliers for their organizations. Start Now, Build Momentum, Never Stop Microsoft Ignite 2025 offered the chance to compress months of learning into days of intensive, hands-on experience, but you can still take part through the on-demand videos, the Global Ignite Skills Challenge, visiting the GitHub repos for the /Ignite25 labs, the Reactor Azure Skilling Series, and the curated Plans on Learn provide multiple entry points regardless of your current skill level or preferred learning style. But remember: the developers who extract the most value from Ignite are those who treat the event as the beginning, not the culmination, of their learning journey. They join hackathons, contribute to GitHub repositories, and engage with the Azure community on Discord and technical forums. The question isn't whether you'll learn something valuable from Microsoft Ignite 2025-that's guaranteed. The question is whether you'll convert that learning into sustained momentum that compounds over months and years into career-defining expertise. The ecosystem is here. The content is ready. Your skilling journey doesn't end when Ignite does—it accelerates.AI Agents: Key Principles and Guidelines - Part 3
This blog post, the third in a series on AI agents, focuses on user-centric design principles for building effective and trustworthy agentic systems. Drawing from the "Agentic Design Patterns" section of Microsoft's "AI Agents for Beginners" GitHub repository, the post outlines key principles categorized by Agent (Space), Agent (Time), and Agent (Core). These principles emphasize connection, accessibility, leveraging historical context, adapting to future needs, and establishing trust through transparency and control. Practical implementation guidelines are provided, along with a travel agent example to illustrate how these principles can be applied in real-world scenarios. The post also links to additional resources and previous installments in the series for a comprehensive learning experience.AI Toolkit Extension Pack for Visual Studio Code: Ignite 2025 Update
Unlock the Latest Agentic App Capabilities The Ignite 2025 update delivers a major leap forward for the AI Toolkit extension pack in VS Code, introducing a unified, end-to-end environment for building, visualizing, and deploying agentic applications to Microsoft Foundry, and the addition of Anthropic’s frontier Claude models in the Model Catalog! This release enables developers to build and debug locally in VS Code, then deploy to the cloud with a single click. Seamlessly switch between VS Code and the Foundry portal for visualization, orchestration, and evaluation, creating a smooth roundtrip workflow that accelerates innovation and delivers a truly unified AI development experience. Download the http://aka.ms/aitoolkit today and start building next-generation agentic apps in VS Code! What Can You Do with the AI Toolkit Extension Pack? Access Anthropic models in the Model Catalog Following the Microsoft, NVIDIA and Anthropic strategic partnerships announcement today, we are excited to share that Anthropic’s frontier Claude models including Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.1, and Claude Haiku 4.5, are now integrated into the AI Toolkit, providing even more choices and flexibility when building intelligent applications and AI agents. Build AI Agents Using GitHub Copilot Scaffold agent applications using best-practice patterns, tool-calling examples, tracing hooks, and test scaffolds, all powered by Copilot and aligned with the Microsoft Agent Framework. Generate agent code in Python or .NET, giving you flexibility to target your preferred runtime. Build and Customize YAML Workflows Design YAML-based workflows in the Foundry portal, then continue editing and testing directly in VS Code. To customize your YAML-based workflows, instantly convert it to Agent Framework code using GitHub Copilot. Upgrade from declarative design to code-first customization without starting from scratch. Visualize Multi-Agent Workflows Envision your code-based agent workflows with an interactive graph visualizer that reveals each component and how they connect Watch in real-time how each node lights up as you run your agent. Use the visualizer to understand and debug complex agent graphs, making iteration fast and intuitive. Experiment, Debug, and Evaluate Locally Use the Hosted Agents Playground to quickly interact with your agents on your development machine. Leverage local tracing support to debug reasoning steps, tool calls, and latency hotspots—so you can quickly diagnose and fix issues. Define metrics, tasks, and datasets for agent evaluation, then implement metrics using the Foundry Evaluation SDK and orchestrate evaluations runs with the help of Copilot. Seamless Integration Across Environments Jump from Foundry Portal to VS Code Web for a development environment in your preferred code editor setting. Open YAML workflows, playgrounds, and agent templates directly in VS Code for editing and deployment. How to Get Started Install the AI Toolkit extension pack from the VS Code marketplace. Check out documentation. Get started with building workflows with Microsoft Foundry in VS Code 1. Work with Hosted (Pro-code) Agent workflows in VS Code 2. Work with Declarative (Low-code) Agent workflows in VS Code Feedback & Support Try out the extensions and let us know what you think! File issues or feedback on our GitHub repo for Foundry extension and AI Toolkit extension. Your input helps us make continuous improvements.Serverless MCP Agent with LangChain.js v1 — Burgers, Tools, and Traces 🍔
AI agents that can actually do stuff (not just chat) are the fun part nowadays, but wiring them cleanly into real APIs, keeping things observable, and shipping them to the cloud can get... messy. So we built a fresh end‑to‑end sample to show how to do it right with the brand new LangChain.js v1 and Model Context Protocol (MCP). In case you missed it, MCP is a recent open standard that makes it easy for LLM agents to consume tools and APIs, and LangChain.js, a great framework for building GenAI apps and agents, has first-class support for it. You can quickly get up speed with the MCP for Beginners course and AI Agents for Beginners course. This new sample gives you: A LangChain.js v1 agent that streams its result, along reasoning + tool steps An MCP server exposing real tools (burger menu + ordering) from a business API A web interface with authentication, sessions history, and a debug panel (for developers) A production-ready multi-service architecture Serverless deployment on Azure in one command ( azd up ) Yes, it’s a burger ordering system. Who doesn't like burgers? Grab your favorite beverage ☕, and let’s dive in for a quick tour! TL;DR key takeaways New sample: full-stack Node.js AI agent using LangChain.js v1 + MCP tools Architecture: web app → agent API → MCP server → burger API Runs locally with a single npm start , deploys with azd up Uses streaming (NDJSON) with intermediate tool + LLM steps surfaced to the UI Ready to fork, extend, and plug into your own domain / tools What will you learn here? What this sample is about and its high-level architecture What LangChain.js v1 brings to the table for agents How to deploy and run the sample How MCP tools can expose real-world APIs Reference links for everything we use GitHub repo LangChain.js docs Model Context Protocol Azure Developer CLI MCP Inspector Use case You want an AI assistant that can take a natural language request like “Order two spicy burgers and show me my pending orders” and: Understand intent (query menu, then place order) Call the right MCP tools in sequence, calling in turn the necessary APIs Stream progress (LLM tokens + tool steps) Return a clean final answer Swap “burgers” for “inventory”, “bookings”, “support tickets”, or “IoT devices” and you’ve got a reusable pattern! Sample overview Before we play a bit with the sample, let's have a look at the main services implemented here: Service Role Tech Agent Web App ( agent-webapp ) Chat UI + streaming + session history Azure Static Web Apps, Lit web components Agent API ( agent-api ) LangChain.js v1 agent orchestration + auth + history Azure Functions, Node.js Burger MCP Server ( burger-mcp ) Exposes burger API as tools over MCP (Streamable HTTP + SSE) Azure Functions, Express, MCP SDK Burger API ( burger-api ) Business logic: burgers, toppings, orders lifecycle Azure Functions, Cosmos DB Here's a simplified view of how they interact: There are also other supporting components like databases and storage not shown here for clarity. For this quickstart we'll only interact with the Agent Web App and the Burger MCP Server, as they are the main stars of the show here. LangChain.js v1 agent features The recent release of LangChain.js v1 is a huge milestone for the JavaScript AI community! It marks a significant shift from experimental tools to a production-ready framework. The new version doubles down on what’s needed to build robust AI applications, with a strong focus on agents. This includes first-class support for streaming not just the final output, but also intermediate steps like tool calls and agent reasoning. This makes building transparent and interactive agent experiences (like the one in this sample) much more straightforward. Quickstart Requirements GitHub account Azure account (free signup, or if you're a student, get free credits here) Azure Developer CLI Deploy and run the sample We'll use GitHub Codespaces for a quick zero-install setup here, but if you prefer to run it locally, check the README. Click on the following link or open it in a new tab to launch a Codespace: Create Codespace This will open a VS Code environment in your browser with the repo already cloned and all the tools installed and ready to go. Provision and deploy to Azure Open a terminal and run these commands: # Install dependencies npm install # Login to Azure azd auth login # Provision and deploy all resources azd up Follow the prompts to select your Azure subscription and region. If you're unsure of which one to pick, choose East US 2 . The deployment will take about 15 minutes the first time, to create all the necessary resources (Functions, Static Web Apps, Cosmos DB, AI Models). If you're curious about what happens under the hood, you can take a look at the main.bicep file in the infra folder, which defines the infrastructure as code for this sample. Test the MCP server While the deployment is running, you can run the MCP server and API locally (even in Codespaces) to see how it works. Open another terminal and run: npm start This will start all services locally, including the Burger API and the MCP server, which will be available at http://localhost:3000/mcp . This may take a few seconds, wait until you see this message in the terminal: 🚀 All services ready 🚀 When these services are running without Azure resources provisioned, they will use in-memory data instead of Cosmos DB so you can experiment freely with the API and MCP server, though the agent won't be functional as it requires a LLM resource. MCP tools The MCP server exposes the following tools, which the agent can use to interact with the burger ordering system: Tool Name Description get_burgers Get a list of all burgers in the menu get_burger_by_id Get a specific burger by its ID get_toppings Get a list of all toppings in the menu get_topping_by_id Get a specific topping by its ID get_topping_categories Get a list of all topping categories get_orders Get a list of all orders in the system get_order_by_id Get a specific order by its ID place_order Place a new order with burgers (requires userId , optional nickname ) delete_order_by_id Cancel an order if it has not yet been started (status must be pending , requires userId ) You can test these tools using the MCP Inspector. Open another terminal and run: npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector Then open the URL printed in the terminal in your browser and connect using these settings: Transport: Streamable HTTP URL: http://localhost:3000/mcp Connection Type: Via Proxy (should be default) Click on Connect, then try listing the tools first, and run get_burgers tool to get the menu info. Test the Agent Web App After the deployment is completed, you can run the command npm run env to print the URLs of the deployed services. Open the Agent Web App URL in your browser (it should look like https://<your-web-app>.azurestaticapps.net ). You'll first be greeted by an authentication page, you can sign in either with your GitHub or Microsoft account and then you should be able to access the chat interface. From there, you can start asking any question or use one of the suggested prompts, for example try asking: Recommend me an extra spicy burger . As the agent processes your request, you'll see the response streaming in real-time, along with the intermediate steps and tool calls. Once the response is complete, you can also unfold the debug panel to see the full reasoning chain and the tools that were invoked: Tip: Our agent service also sends detailed tracing data using OpenTelemetry. You can explore these either in Azure Monitor for the deployed service, or locally using an OpenTelemetry collector. We'll cover this in more detail in a future post. Wrap it up Congratulations, you just finished spinning up a full-stack serverless AI agent using LangChain.js v1, MCP tools, and Azure’s serverless platform. Now it's your turn to dive in the code and extend it for your use cases! 😎 And don't forget to azd down once you're done to avoid any unwanted costs. Going further This was just a quick introduction to this sample, and you can expect more in-depth posts and tutorials soon. Since we're in the era of AI agents, we've also made sure that this sample can be explored and extended easily with code agents like GitHub Copilot. We even built a custom chat mode to help you discover and understand the codebase faster! Check out the Copilot setup guide in the repo to get started. You can quickly get up speed with the MCP for Beginners course and AI Agents for Beginners course. If you like this sample, don't forget to star the repo ⭐️! You can also join us in the Azure AI community Discord to chat and ask any questions. Happy coding and burger ordering! 🍔🚀 AI Toolkit for VS Code — February 2026 Update
February brings a major milestone for AI Toolkit. Version 0.30.0 is packed with new capabilities that make agent development more discoverable, debuggable, and production-ready—from a brand-new Tool Catalog, to an end-to-end Agent Inspector, to treating evaluations as first-class tests. 🔧 New in v0.30.0 🧰 Tool Catalog: One place to discover and manage agent tools The new Tool Catalog is a centralized hub for discovering, configuring, and integrating tools into your AI agents. Instead of juggling scattered configs and definitions, you now get a unified experience for tool management: Browse, search, and filter tools from the public Foundry catalog and local stdio MCP servers Configure connection settings for each tool directly in VS Code Add tools to agents seamlessly via Agent Builder Manage the full tool lifecycle: add, update, or remove tools with confidence Why it matters: expanding your agent’s capabilities is now a few clicks away—and stays manageable as your agent grows. 🕵️ Agent Inspector: Debug agents like real software The new Agent Inspector turns agent debugging into a first-class experience inside VS Code. Just press F5 and launch your agent with full debugger support. Key highlights: One-click F5 debugging with breakpoints, variable inspection, and step-through execution Copilot auto-configuration that scaffolds agent code, endpoints, and debugging setup Production-ready code generated using the Hosted Agent SDK, ready for Microsoft Foundry Real-time visualization of streaming responses, tool calls, and multi-agent workflows Quick code navigation—double-click workflow nodes to jump straight to source Unified experience combining chat and workflow visualization in one view Why it matters: agents are no longer black boxes—you can see exactly what’s happening, when, and why. 🧪 Evaluation as Tests: Treat quality like code With Evaluation as Tests, agent quality checks now fit naturally into existing developer workflows. What’s new: Define evaluations as test cases using familiar pytest syntax and Eval Runner SDK annotations Run evaluations directly from VS Code Test Explorer, mixing and matching test cases Analyze results in a tabular view with Data Wrangler integration Submit evaluation definitions to run at scale in Microsoft Foundry Why it matters: evaluations are no longer ad-hoc scripts—they’re versioned, repeatable, and CI-friendly. 🔄 Improvements across the Toolkit 🧱 Agent Builder Agent Builder received a major usability refresh: Redesigned layout for better navigation and focus Quick switcher to move between agents effortlessly Support for authoring, running, and saving Foundry prompt agents Add tools to Foundry prompt agents directly from the Tool Catalog or built-in tools New Inspire Me feature to help you get started when drafting agent instructions Numerous performance and stability improvements 🤖 Model Catalog Added support for models using the OpenAI Response API, including gpt-5.2-codex General performance and reliability improvements 🧠 Build Agent with GitHub Copilot New Workflow entry point to quickly generate multi-agent workflows with Copilot Ability to orchestrate workflows by selecting prompt agents from Foundry 🔁 Conversion & Profiling Generate interactive playgrounds for history models Added Qualcomm GPU recipes Show resource usage for Phi Silica directly in Model Playground ✨ Wrapping up Version 0.30.0 is a big step forward for AI Toolkit. With better discoverability, real debugging, structured evaluation, and deeper Foundry integration, building AI agents in VS Code now feels much closer to building production software. As always, we’d love your feedback—keep it coming, and happy agent building! 🚀🚀 AI Toolkit for VS Code: January 2026 Update
Happy New Year! 🎆 We are kicking off 2026 with a major set of updates designed to streamline how you build, test, and deploy AI agents. This month, we’ve focused on aligning with the latest GitHub Copilot standards, introducing powerful new debugging tools, and enhancing our support for enterprise-grade models via Microsoft Foundry. 💡 From Copilot Instructions to Agent Skills The biggest architectural shift following the latest VS Code Copilot standards, in v0.28.1 is the transition from Copilot Instructions to Copilot Skills. This transition has equipped GitHub Copilot specialized skills on developing AI agents using Microsoft Foundry and Agent Framework in a cost-efficient way. In AI Toolkit, we have migrated our Copilot Tools from the Custom Instructions to Agent Skills. This change allows for a more capable integration within GitHub Copilot Chat. 🔄 Enhanced AIAgentExpert: Our custom agent now has a deeper understanding of workflow code generation and evaluation planning/execution. 🧹Automatic Migration: When you upgrade to v0.28.1, the toolkit will automatically clean up your old instructions to ensure a seamless transition to the new skills-based framework. 🏗️ Major Enhancements to Agent Development Our v0.28.0 milestone release brought significant improvements to how agents are authored and authenticated. 🔒 Anthropic & Entra Auth Support We’ve expanded the Agent Builder and Playground to support Anthropic models using Entra Auth types. This provides enterprise developers with a more secure way to leverage Claude models within the Agent Framework while maintaining strict authentication standards. 🏢 Foundry-First Development We are prioritizing the Microsoft Foundry ecosystem to provide a more robust development experience: Foundry v2: Code generation for agents now defaults to Foundry v2. ⚡ Eval Tool: You can now generate evaluation code directly within the toolkit to create and run evaluations in Microsoft Foundry. 📊 Model Catalog: We’ve optimized the Model Catalog to prioritize Foundry models and improved general loading performance. 🏎️ 💻 Performance and Local Models For developers building on Windows, we continue to optimize the local model experience: Profiling for Windows ML: Version 0.28.0 introduces profiling features for Windows ML-based local models, allowing you to monitor performance and resource utilization directly within VS Code. Platform Optimization: To keep the interface clean, we’ve removed the Windows AI API tab from the Model Catalog when running on Linux and macOS platforms. 🐛 Squashing Bugs & Polishing the Experience Codespaces Fix: Resolved a crash occurring when selecting images in the Playground while using GitHub Codespaces. Resource Management: Fixed a delay where newly added models wouldn't immediately appear in the "My Resources" view. Claude Compatibility: Fixed an issue where non-empty content was required for Claude models when used via the AI Toolkit in GitHub Copilot. 🚀 Getting Started Ready to experience the future of AI development? Here's how to get started: 📥 Download: Install the AI Toolkit from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace 📖 Learn: Explore our comprehensive AI Toolkit Documentation 🔍 Discover: Check out the complete changelog for v0.24.0 We'd love to hear from you! Whether it's a feature request, bug report, or feedback on your experience, join the conversation and contribute directly on our GitHub repository. Happy Coding! 💻✨Introducing the Microsoft Agent Framework
Introducing the Microsoft Agent Framework: A Unified Foundation for AI Agents and Workflows The landscape of AI development is evolving rapidly, and Microsoft is at the forefront with the release of the Microsoft Agent Framework an open-source SDK designed to empower developers to build intelligent, multi-agent systems with ease and precision. Whether you're working in .NET or Python, this framework offers a unified, extensible foundation that merges the best of Semantic Kernel and AutoGen, while introducing powerful new capabilities for agent orchestration and workflow design. Introducing Microsoft Agent Framework: The Open-Source Engine for Agentic AI Apps | Azure AI Foundry Blog Introducing Microsoft Agent Framework | Microsoft Azure Blog Why Another Agent Framework? Both Semantic Kernel and AutoGen have pioneered agentic development, Semantic Kernel with its enterprise-grade features and AutoGen with its research-driven abstractions. The Microsoft Agent Framework is the next generation of both, built by the same teams to unify their strengths: AutoGen’s simplicity in multi-agent orchestration. Semantic Kernel’s robustness in thread-based state management, telemetry, and type safety. New capabilities like graph-based workflows, checkpointing, and human-in-the-loop support This convergence means developers no longer have to choose between experimentation and production. The Agent Framework is designed to scale from single-agent prototypes to complex, enterprise-ready systems Core Capabilities AI Agents AI agents are autonomous entities powered by LLMs that can process user inputs, make decisions, call tools and MCP servers, and generate responses. They support providers like Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, and Azure AI, and can be enhanced with: Agent threads for state management. Context providers for memory. Middleware for action interception. MCP clients for tool integration Use cases include customer support, education, code generation, research assistance, and more—especially where tasks are dynamic and underspecified. Workflows Workflows are graph-based orchestrations that connect multiple agents and functions to perform complex, multi-step tasks. They support: Type-based routing Conditional logic Checkpointing Human-in-the-loop interactions Multi-agent orchestration patterns (sequential, concurrent, hand-off, Magentic) Workflows are ideal for structured, long-running processes that require reliability and modularity. Developer Experience The Agent Framework is designed to be intuitive and powerful: Installation: Python: pip install agent-framework .NET: dotnet add package Microsoft.Agents.AI Integration: Works with Foundry SDK, MCP SDK, A2A SDK, and M365 Copilot Agents Samples and Manifests: Explore declarative agent manifests and code samples Learning Resources: Microsoft Learn modules AI Agents for Beginners AI Show demos Azure AI Foundry Discord community Migration and Compatibility If you're currently using Semantic Kernel or AutoGen, migration guides are available to help you transition smoothly. The framework is designed to be backward-compatible where possible, and future updates will continue to support community contributions via the GitHub repository. Important Considerations The Agent Framework is in public preview. Feedback and issues are welcome on the GitHub repository. When integrating with third-party servers or agents, review data sharing practices and compliance boundaries carefully. The Microsoft Agent Framework marks a pivotal moment in AI development, bringing together research innovation and enterprise readiness into a single, open-source foundation. Whether you're building your first agent or orchestrating a fleet of them, this framework gives you the tools to do it safely, scalably, and intelligently. Ready to get started? Download the SDK, explore the documentation, and join the community shaping the future of AI agents.GPT-5 Family of Models & GPT OSS Are Now Available in AI Toolkit for VS Code
AI Toolkit v0.18.3 is here—and it’s a major milestone. This release introduces full support for: The latest GPT-5 family of models OpenAI’s open-source models (GPT OSS) via Azure AI Foundry and ONNX Runtime Whether you're building in the cloud, on the edge, or experimenting locally, this update gives you more flexibility, performance, and choice than ever.LangChain v1 is now generally available!
Today LangChain v1 officially launches and marks a new era for the popular AI agent library. The new version ushers in a more streamlined, and extensible foundation for building agentic LLM applications. In this post we'll breakdown what’s new, what changed, and what “general availability” means in practice. Join Microsoft Developer Advocates, Marlene Mhangami and Yohan Lasorsa, to see live demos of the new API and find out more about what JavaScript and Python developers need to know about v1. Register for this event here. Why v1? The Motivation Behind the Redesign The number of abstractions in LangChain had grown over the years to include chains, agents, tools, wrappers, prompt helpers and more, which, while powerful, introduced complexity and fragmentation. As model APIs evolve (multimodal inputs, richer structured output, tool-calling semantics), LangChain needed a cleaner, more consistent core to ensure production ready stability. In v1: All existing chains and agent abstractions in the old LangChain are deprecated; they are replaced by a single high-level agent abstraction built on LangGraph internals. LangGraph becomes the foundational runtime for durable, stateful, orchestrated execution. LangChain now emphasizes being the “fast path to agents” that doesn’t hide but builds upon LangGraph. The internal message format has been upgraded to support standard content blocks (e.g. text, reasoning, citations, tool calls) across model providers, decoupling “content” from raw strings. Namespace cleanup: the langchain package now focuses tightly on core abstractions (agents, models, messages, tools), while legacy patterns are moved into langchain-classic (or equivalents). What’s New & Noteworthy for Developers Here are key changes developers should pay attention to: 1. create_agent becomes the default API The create_agent function is now the idiomatic way to spin up agents in v1. It replaces older constructs (e.g. create_react_agent) with a clearer, more modular API. You can also now compose middleware around model calls, tool calls, before/after hooks, error handling, etc. 2. Standard content blocks & normalized message model One of LangChain's greatest stregnth's is it's model agnosticism. Content blocks move to standardize all outputs, so developers know exactly what to expect regardless of the model they are using. Responses from models are no longer opaque strings. Instead, they carry structured `content_blocks` which classify parts of the output (e.g. “text”, “reasoning”, “citation”, “tool_call”). 3. Multimodal and richer model inputs / outputs LangChain continues to support more than just text-based interactions, but in a more comprehensive way in v1. Models can accept and return files, images, video, etc., and the message format reflects this flexibility. This upgrade prepares us well for the next generation of models with mixed modalities (vision, audio, etc.). 4. Middleware hooks Because create_agent is designed as a pluggable pipeline, developers can now inject logic before/after model calls, before tool calls and more. New middleware such as 'human in the loop' and 'summarization' middleware have been added. This is a feature of the new package that I am most excited about it! Even with the simplified agents API, this option provides more room to customize workflows! Developers can try pre-built middleware or make their own. 5. Simplified, leaner namespace Many formerly top-level modules or helper classes have been removed or relocated to langchain-classic (or similarly stamped “legacy”) to declutter the main API surface. A migration guide is available to help projects transition from v0 to v1. While v1 is now the main line, older v0 is still documented and maintained for compatibility. What “General Availability” Means (and Doesn’t) v1 is production-ready, after testing the alpha version. The stable v0 release line remains supported for those unwilling or unable to migrate immediately. Breaking changes in public APIs will be accompanied by version bumps (i.e. minor version increments) and deprecation notices. The roadmap anticipates minor versions every 2–3 months (with patch releases more frequently). Because the field of LLM applications is evolving rapidly, the team expects continued iterations in v1—even in GA mode—with users encouraged to surface feedback, file issues, and adopt the migration path. (This is in line with the philosophy stated in docs.) Developer Callouts & Suggested Steps Some things we recommend for developers to do to get started with v1: Try the new API Now! LangChain Azure AI and Azure OpenAI have migrated to LangChain v1 and are ready to test! Learn more about using LangChain and Azure AI: Python: https://docs.langchain.com/oss/python/integrations/providers/azure_ai JavaScript: https://docs.langchain.com/oss/javascript/integrations/providers/microsoft Join us for a Live Stream on Wednesday 22 October 2025 Join Microsoft Developer Advocates Marlene Mhangami and Yohan Lasorsa for a livestream this Wednesday to see live demos and find out more about what JavaScript and Python developers need to know about v1. Register for this event here.
