S2:E4 Understanding AI Developer Experiences with Leo Yao
This week in Model Mondays, we put the spotlight on the AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code - and explore the tools and workflows that make building generative AI apps and agents easier for developers. Read on for my recap. This post was generated with AI help and human revision & review. To learn more about our motivation and workflows, please refer to this document in our website. About Model Mondays Model Mondays is a weekly series designed to help you grow your Azure AI Foundry Model IQ step by step. Each week includes: 5-Minute Highlights – Quick news and updates about Azure AI models and tools on Monday 15-Minute Spotlight – Deep dive into a key model, protocol, or feature on Monday 30-Minute AMA on Friday – Live Q&A with subject matter experts from the Monday livestream If you're looking to grow your skills with the latest in AI model development, this series is a great place to begin. Useful links: Register for upcoming livestreams Watch past episodes Join the AMA on AI Developer Experiences Visit the Model Mondays forum Spotlight On: AI Developer Experiences 1. What is this topic and why is it important? AI Developer Experiences focus on making the process of building, testing, and deploying AI models as efficient as possible. With the right tools—such as the AI Toolkit and Azure AI Foundry extensions for Visual Studio Code—developers can eliminate unnecessary friction and focus on innovation. This is essential for accelerating the real-world impact of generative AI. 2. What is one key takeaway from the episode? The integration of Azure AI Foundry with Visual Studio Code allows developers to manage models, run experiments, and deploy applications directly from their preferred development environment. This unified workflow enhances productivity and simplifies the AI development lifecycle. 3. How can I get started? Here are a few resources to explore: Install the AI Toolkit for VS Code Explore Azure AI Foundry Documentation Join the Microsoft Tech Community to follow and contribute to discussions 4. What’s New in Azure AI Foundry? Azure AI Foundry continues to evolve to meet developer needs with more power, flexibility, and productivity. Here are some of the latest updates highlighted in this week’s episode: AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code Now with deeper integration, allowing developers to manage models, run experiments, and deploy applications directly within their editor—streamlining the entire workflow. Prompt Shields Enhanced security capabilities designed to protect generative AI applications from prompt injection and unsafe content, improving reliability in production environments. Model Router A new intelligent routing system that dynamically directs model requests to the most suitable model available—enhancing performance and efficiency at scale. Expanded Model Catalog The catalog now includes more open-source and proprietary models, featuring the latest from Hugging Face, OpenAI, and other leading providers. Improved Documentation and Sample Projects Newly added guides and ready-to-use examples to help developers get started faster, understand workflows, and build confidently. My A-Ha Moment Before watching this episode, setting up an AI development environment always felt like a challenge. There were so many moving parts—configurations, integrations, and dependencies—that it was hard to know where to begin. Seeing the AI Toolkit in action inside Visual Studio Code changed everything for me. It was a realization moment: “That’s it? I can explore models, test prompts, and deploy apps—without ever leaving my editor?” This episode made it clear that building with AI doesn’t have to be complex or intimidating. With the right tools, experimentation becomes faster and far more enjoyable. Now, I’m genuinely excited to build, test, and explore new generative AI solutions because the process finally feels accessible. Coming Up Next Week In the next episode, we’ll be exploring Fine-Tuning and Distillation with Dave Voutila. This session will focus on how to adapt Azure OpenAI models to your unique use cases and apply best practices for efficient knowledge transfer. Register here to reserve your spot and be part of the conversation. Join the Community Building in AI is better when we do it together. That’s why the Azure AI Developer Community exists—to support your journey and provide resources every step of the way. Join the Discord for real-time discussions, events, and peer learning Explore the Forum to catch up on AMAs, ask questions, and connect with other developers About Me I'm Sharda, a Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador passionate about cloud technologies and artificial intelligence. I enjoy learning, building, and helping others grow in tech. Connect with me: LinkedIn GitHub Dev.to Microsoft Tech CommunityModel Mondays S2:E2 - Understanding Model Context Protocol (MCP)
This week in Model Mondays, we focus on the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — and learn how to securely connect AI models to real-world tools and services using MCP, Azure AI Foundry, and industry-standard authorization. Read on for my recap About Model Mondays Model Mondays is a weekly series designed to help you build your Azure AI Foundry Model IQ step by step. Here’s how it works: 5-Minute Highlights – Quick news and updates about Azure AI models and tools on Monday 15-Minute Spotlight – Deep dive into a key model, protocol, or feature on Monday 30-Minute AMA on Friday – Live Q&A with subject matter experts from Monday livestream If you want to grow your skills with the latest in AI model development, Model Mondays is the place to start. Want to follow along? Register Here - to watch upcoming Mondel Monday livestreams Watch Playlists to replay past Model Monday episodes Register Here - to join the AMA on MCP on Friday Jun 27 Visit The Forum- to view Foundry Friday AMAs and recaps Spotlight On: Model Context Protocol (MCP) This week, the Model Monday’s spotlight was on the Model Context Protocol (MCP) with subject matter expert Den Delimarsky. Don't forget to check out the slides from the presentation, for resource links! In this blog post, I’ll talk about my five key takeaways from this episode: What Is MCP and Why Does It Matter? What Is MCP Authorization and Why Is It Important? How Can I Get Started with MCP? Spotlight: My Aha Moment Highlights: What’s New in Azure AI 1 . What Is MCP and Why is it Important? MCP is a protocol that standardizes how AI applications connect the underlying AI models to required knowledge sources (data) and interaction APIs (functions) for more effective task execution. Because these models are pre-trained, they lack access to real-time or proprietary data sources (for knowledge) and real-world environments (for interaction). MCP allows them to "discover and use" relevant knowledge and action tools to add relevant context to the model for task execution. Explore: The MCP Specification Learn: MCP For Beginners Want to learn more about MCP - check out the AI Engineer World Fair 2025 "MCP and Keynotes" track. It kicks off with a keynote from Asha Sharma that gives you a broader vision for Azure AI Foundry. Then look for the talk from Harald Kirschner on MCP and VS Code. 2. What Is MCP Authorization and Why Does It Matter? MCP (Model Context Protocol) authorization is a system that helps developers manage who can access their apps, especially when they are hosted in the cloud. The goal is to simplify the process of securing these apps by using common tools like OAuth and identity providers (such as Google or GitHub), so developers don't have to be security experts. Key Takeaways: The new MCP proposal uses familiar identity providers to simplify the authorization process. It allows developers to secure their apps without requiring deep knowledge of security. The update ensures better security controls and prepares the system for future authentication methods. Related Reading: Aaron Parecki, Let's Fix OAuth in MCP Den Delimarsky, Improving The MCP Authorization Spec - One RFC At A Time MCP Specification, Authorization protocol draft On Monday, Den joined us live to talk about the work he did for the authorization protocol. Watch the session now to get a sense for what the MCP Authorization protocol does, how it works, and why it matters. Have questions? Submit them to the forum or Join the Foundry Friday AMA on Jun 27 at 1:30pm ET. 3. How Can I Get Started? If you want to start working with MCP, here’s how to do it easily: Learn the Fundamentals: Explore MCP For Beginners Use an MCP Server: Explore VSCode Agent Mode support . Use MCP with AI Agents: Explore the Azure MCP Server 4. What’s New in Azure AI Foundry? Managed Compute for Cohere Models: Faster, secure AI deployments with low latency. Prompt Shields: New Azure security system to protect against prompt injection and unsafe content. OpenAI o3 Pro Model: A fast, low-cost model similar to GPT-4 Turbo. Codex Mini Model: A smaller, quicker model perfect for developer command-line tasks. MCP Security Upgrades: Now easier to secure AI apps using familiar OAuth identity providers. 5. My Aha Moment Before this session, I used to think that connecting apps to AI was complicated and risky. I believed developers had to build their own security systems from scratch, which sounded tough. But this week, I learned that MCP makes it simple. We can now use trusted logins like Google or GitHub and securely connect AI models to real-world apps without extra hassle. How I Learned This ? To be honest, I also used Copilot to help me understand and summarize this topic in simple words. I wanted to make sure I really understood it well enough to explain it to my friends and peers. I believe in learning with the tools we have, and AI is one of them. By using Copilot and combining it with what I learned from the Model Monday’s session, I was able to write this blog in a way that is easy to understand Takeaway for Beginners: It’s okay to use AI to learn what matters is that you grow, verify, and share the knowledge in your own way. Coming Up Next Week: Next week, we dive into SLMs & Reasoning (Phi-4) with Mojan Javaheripi, PhD, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. This session will explore how Small Language Models (SLMs) can perform advanced reasoning tasks, and what makes models like Phi-4 reasoning efficient, scalable, and useful in practical AI applications. Register Here! Join The Community Great devs don't build alone! In a fast-pased developer ecosystem, there's no time to hunt for help. That's why we have the Azure AI Developer Community. Join us today and let's journey together! Join the Discord - for real-time chats, events & learning Explore the Forum - for AMA recaps, Q&A, and help! About Me: I'm Sharda, a Gold Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador interested in cloud and AI. Find me on Github, Dev.to, Tech Community and Linkedin. In this blog series I have summarized my takeaways from this week's Model Mondays livestream.Git Yourself a Leg Up - GitHub Tools for Teams and Teaching
This year at Pycon Au 2023, I gave a talk in the Education Track, highlighting a collection of cool GitHub tools and techniques to combine in an interesting way that is great for learners, teachers, and pro-developers alike. Come along and see a new way of combining some of the newer GitHub tools, in the classroom, the workplace and more. This set of tools is I'll bring together is: GitHub Templates, Codespaces, GitHub Actions, and GitHub Copilot. I’ll explain how you can combine all these pieces of tech to have a project template, a dev environment that runs in the browser, and automated tests that run with each push. And I’ll also tell you how you can use Copilot, either while you’re using a template or creating one!
Ready, Set, Hack: Empower the developer in you with Microsoft Teams app development June 1st 9AM PST
Join us for HackTogether: The Microsoft Teams Global Hack, our virtual hackathon to learn how to build powerful apps for Microsoft Teams. Join live events, connect with Microsoft experts and win awesome prizes!Explore Innovative Technologies with Microsoft Reactor's Post Student Summit Event Series
Microsoft Reactor is hosting a Post Student Summit event series throughout April and May, following the success of the Student Summit held last March. The series provides opportunities for developers to gain new technical skills and connect with Microsoft's inclusive community. The virtual events cover a range of topics, including Azure Speech Service, Azure DataWorks, and AI on Azure. Don't miss out on the chance to register for the free sessionsMicrosoft Student Summit March 2023 - Start and Accelerate Your Career in Tech
Student Summit - Start and Accelerate Your Career in Tech In partnership with Microsoft Reactor this exciting 90-minute event will help build your confidence and motivation to skill on the Microsoft Cloud, and coach you on the next steps to continue your learning on topics including - Application Development and Developer Tools, Low Code/ No-Code / Fusion Development, and AI, Data and Machine Learning.Exploring GitHub for education: Codespaces and Copilot
Github is known as the developer's best friend. As software and technologies continue to evolve, also Github platform and services are constantly evolving. In this blog post, I wish to show you how the latest Git tools, Github Codespaces and GitHub Copilot, can transform and support the world of education.Building your own educational visualisation learning platform with .Net Core & Azure
First published on MSDN on Apr 20, 2018 Guest blog by David Buchanan Imperial College Microsoft Student Partner and UK Finalist at the Imagine Cup 2018 with Higher Education AppAbout me I’m a second year Mechanical Engineering student at Imperial College London.
