Microsoft Agent Framework
The latest news from the Microsoft Agent Framework team for developers
Latest posts
Move Agent Orchestration/Workflows out of Code with Agent Framework Declarative Workflows 1.0
Most multi-agent apps wire every flow in application code: the sequence of steps, branching, and handoffs between agents all live inside the program, making the orchestration harder to review, version, and change. Declarative workflows make that orchestration explicit. In YAML, you define how agents coordinate, how state changes, where execution branches, and when people step in. Agent Framework loads the definition into a standard workflow you can run, stream, and compose with code. Today, declarative workflows reach 1.0 across both Agent Framework SDKs. Python's package is now 1.0.0, joining th...
The Microsoft Agent Framework Harness is now released
Your agents can now be built on a stable, batteries-included harness - the loop, planning, memory, context management, approvals, and telemetry that turn a model into an agent that actually does things - in both Python and .NET. What is an agent harness? An agent harness is the scaffolding that turns a language model into an agent. A model on its own can only generate text. To have it call tools, work through multi-step tasks, remember what it has done, and keep going until the job is finished, you need a runtime wrapped around the model - and that runtime is the harness. Agent Framework ships a ready-made o...
Agent Skills for Python Is Now Released
Your Python agents can now pick up reusable bundles of domain expertise (instructions, reference material, and scripts that load only when a task calls for them) through a stable, production-ready API. Agent Skills for Python in Microsoft Agent Framework is stable and shipping: the core skills API has no experimental gate, so you can rely on it in production without the churn of a preview surface. Teams can author skills, release them on their own schedule, and drop them into any agent, backed by the governance controls enterprises expect before agents reach production. If you've been following our earlier...
Agent Harness: Scaling the claw or harness capabilities
Part 3 of Build your own claw and harness with Microsoft Agent Framework. In Part 2 our personal finance assistant learned to work with your data safely: it reads your portfolio, asks before it trades, and remembers what matters across sessions. It's useful - but everything it knows is baked into one prompt, it does its work one step at a time, and it can't reach past the file-access tools to actually reorganize anything. This part makes the claw more capable along four axes: As before, we only supply what makes our agent ours; the harness provides the machinery. Let's take them in turn...
Agent Framework’s Orchestration Patterns Reach 1.0
Python's package is now 1.0.0. That puts Microsoft Agent Framework's orchestration layer at 1.0 across Python and .NET. Sequential, concurrent, group chat, handoff, and magentic orchestration are now stable in both SDKs. You can pick the coordination pattern that fits your problem instead of choosing around SDK maturity. Magentic is the best example of why that matters. It is the least hand-wired pattern: you give it a goal, a manager, and a set of specialists, then the manager decides how the team should work. At the workflow layer, Agent Framework lets you build the graph yourself. Executors do the wo...
Agent Skills for .NET Is Now Released
You can now give your .NET agents reusable packages of domain expertise - instructions, reference documents, and scripts they load only when a task needs them - through a stable, production-ready API. Agent Skills for .NET in Microsoft Agent Framework has moved out of experimental preview - the attribute is removed and the API is stable. Teams can build skills, ship them independently, and combine them in any agent, with the governance controls enterprises need before putting agents into production. If you've been following our earlier posts on file-based skills and authoring modes with script execution, ever...
Agent Harness: Working with your data, safely
Part 2 of Build your own claw and agent harness with Microsoft Agent Framework. In Part 1 we stood up a harness and gave our personal finance assistant its first abilities: a custom tool, web search, and planning. It can talk about the markets - but it can't yet touch your data, and nothing stops it from taking a sensitive action on a whim. This part fixes both, using three abilities that are all included in the harness: As before, we only supply what makes our agent ours; the harness provides the machinery. Let's take the three in turn. Give it your data: file access Our assistant should...
Meet your agent harness and claw
Part 1 of Build your own claw and agent harness with Microsoft Agent Framework. In the overview we said a "claw" is really just an agent harness: a loop around a model, wired up with tools, planning, memory, and more. In this first post we stand up that loop and give our personal finance assistant its first three abilities: plan. The remarkable part: we get almost all of this for free. Agent Framework's harness bundles function invocation, history persistence, planning, and web search into a single call. We only supply what makes our agent ours - its instructions and its custom tool. Let...
Build your own claw and agent harness with Microsoft Agent Framework
What does it take to build your own "claw" - a capable, CLI-style agent that can plan, use tools, remember things, and safely act on your behalf? Coding agents and assistants like these can feel like magic, but underneath they are an agent harness: a loop around a language model wired up with tools, planning, memory, approvals, and observability. In this series we build one from scratch using Microsoft Agent Framework and its batteries-included harness, demonstrating both .NET and Python, side by side. The series Everything is grounded in runnable samples that live in the repository, so you can follow alon...
