Bundled upstream support

Supporting files are included at skill-relative paths. See UPSTREAM-NOTICE.md for their pinned sources, licenses, hashes, and import changes.

Agent Framework Azure Hosted Agents

Build persistent agents on Azure AI Foundry using the Microsoft Agent Framework Python SDK.

Architecture

User Query → AzureAIAgentsProvider → Azure AI Agent Service (Persistent)
                    ↓
              Agent.run() / Agent.run_stream()
                    ↓
              Tools: Functions | Hosted (Code/Search/Web) | MCP
                    ↓
              AgentThread (conversation persistence)

Installation

# Full framework (recommended)
pip install agent-framework --pre

# Or Azure-specific package only
pip install agent-framework-azure-ai --pre

Environment Variables

export AZURE_AI_PROJECT_ENDPOINT="https://<project>.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/<project-id>"
export AZURE_AI_MODEL_DEPLOYMENT_NAME="gpt-4o-mini"
export BING_CONNECTION_ID="your-bing-connection-id"  # For web search

Authentication

from azure.identity.aio import AzureCliCredential, DefaultAzureCredential

# Development
credential = AzureCliCredential()

# Production
credential = DefaultAzureCredential()

Core Workflow

Basic Agent

import asyncio
from agent_framework.azure import AzureAIAgentsProvider
from azure.identity.aio import AzureCliCredential

async def main():
    async with (
        AzureCliCredential() as credential,
        AzureAIAgentsProvider(credential=credential) as provider,
    ):
        agent = await provider.create_agent(
            name="MyAgent",
            instructions="You are a helpful assistant.",
        )
        
        result = await agent.run("Hello!")
        print(result.text)

asyncio.run(main())

Agent with Function Tools

from typing import Annotated
from pydantic import Field
from agent_framework.azure import AzureAIAgentsProvider
from azure.identity.aio import AzureCliCredential

def get_weather(
    location: Annotated[str, Field(description="City name to get weather for")],
) -> str:
    """Get the current weather for a location."""
    return f"Weather in {location}: 72°F, sunny"

def get_current_time() -> str:
    """Get the current UTC time."""
    from datetime import datetime, timezone
    return datetime.now(timezone.utc).strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S UTC")

async def main():
    async with (
        AzureCliCredential() as credential,
        AzureAIAgentsProvider(credential=credential) as provider,
    ):
        agent = await provider.create_agent(
            name="WeatherAgent",
            instructions="You help with weather and time queries.",
            tools=[get_weather, get_current_time],  # Pass functions directly
        )
        
        result = await agent.run("What's the weather in Seattle?")
        print(result.text)

Agent with Hosted Tools

from agent_framework import (
    HostedCodeInterpreterTool,
    HostedFileSearchTool,
    HostedWebSearchTool,
)
from agent_framework.azure import AzureAIAgentsProvider
from azure.identity.aio import AzureCliCredential

async def main():
    async with (
        AzureCliCredential() as credential,
        AzureAIAgentsProvider(credential=credential) as provider,
    ):
        agent = await provider.create_agent(
            name="MultiToolAgent",
            instructions="You can execute code, search files, and search the web.",
            tools=[
                HostedCodeInterpreterTool(),
                HostedWebSearchTool(name="Bing"),
            ],
        )
        
        result = await agent.run("Calculate the factorial of 20 in Python")
        print(result.text)

Streaming Responses

async def main():
    async with (
        AzureCliCredential() as credential,
        AzureAIAgentsProvider(credential=credential) as provider,
    ):
        agent = await provider.create_agent(
            name="StreamingAgent",
            instructions="You are a helpful assistant.",
        )
        
        print("Agent: ", end="", flush=True)
        async for chunk in agent.run_stream("Tell me a short story"):
            if chunk.text:
                print(chunk.text, end="", flush=True)
        print()

Conversation Threads

from agent_framework.azure import AzureAIAgentsProvider
from azure.identity.aio import AzureCliCredential

async def main():
    async with (
        AzureCliCredential() as credential,
        AzureAIAgentsProvider(credential=credential) as provider,
    ):
        agent = await provider.create_agent(
            name="ChatAgent",
            instructions="You are a helpful assistant.",
            tools=[get_weather],
        )
        
        # Create thread for conversation persistence
        thread = agent.get_new_thread()
        
        # First turn
        result1 = await agent.run("What's the weather