Register and manage agents in Azure API Center

This article shows you how to register AI agents, including A2A agents, in API Center, make them discoverable to users, and update and manage them.

Prerequisites

• An Azure API Center instance
• An agent described by an agent card in JSON format or an agent definition in Markdown format
• Appropriate permissions to edit APIs in your API Center

Register agent

1. Sign in to the Azure portal, and go to your API center.

2. In the sidebar menu, under Inventory, select Assets.

3. Select + Register an asset > Agent.

   

4. In the Register an agent form, enter the information described in the following table:

   Field	Description
   Title	Enter a descriptive name for the agent, such as Help Desk Agent.
   Identification	API Center automatically generates an identifier based on the title, such as help-desk-agent. You can edit this identifier if needed.
   Short summary	Enter a brief one-line description of what the agent does that appears in the API Center portal and other locations.
   Description	Optionally enter a more detailed description of the skill's capabilities, use cases, and behavior.
   Version
   Version title	Enter a version title of your choice, such as v1.
   Version identification	API Center automatically generates an identifier based on the version title. You can edit this identifier if needed.
   Version lifecycle	Select the current stage of the agent version's lifecycle from the dropdown menu. Learn more about versions in API Center.
   Agent details
   Agent definition	Enter a URL or Select a file to upload an agent definition. The agent definition should be in Markdown format and include details about the agent's capabilities, skills, and other relevant information.
   Protocol	If applicable, select the A2A protocol if the agent adheres to it.
   Agent card	Optionally enter a URL or Select a file to upload an A2A agent card in JSON format.

   

5. Select Create to add the agent.

After registration, the agent appears in your inventory on the Inventory > Assets page.

Update a registered agent

You can update agent information at any time.

1. In the Azure portal, go to your API center.
2. In the sidebar menu, under Inventory, select Assets.
3. From the table, select the agent name in the Title column.
4. Select the Edit button to open the Edit page in the working pane.
5. Make your changes and select Save.

Synchronize agents from API sources

To automate agent registration and keep your inventory up to date, you can integrate the following upstream sources with your API center:

• Azure API Management: If you manage A2A agents in Azure API Management, you can enable automatic synchronization to keep your API center up to date. To learn more, see Synchronize APIs from Azure API Management instance.

• Git repository: For A2A agents and other AI assets stored in a Git repository, you can enable automatic synchronization to keep your API center up to date. For more information, see Synchronize API assets from a Git repo.

Discover agents in the API Center portal

Set up your API Center portal so that developers and other stakeholders in your organization can discover agents in your API inventory. From the API Center portal, users can:

• Browse and filter agents in the inventory.
• View detailed information about each agent.

Assess AI assets (preview)

API Center can assess the quality of AI assets such as skills and agents registered in your API center. API Center comes with default assessment criteria out of the box, assessing assets across predefined dimensions. Enterprise platform administrators can further extend these defaults by defining custom assessment criteria tailored to their organization's specific standards, compliance requirements, and governance policies.

To enable automated assessments of AI assets in your inventory:

1. In the Azure portal, go to your API center.

2. In the sidebar menu. go to Governance > AI Assessment (preview).

3. Select the Skills tab to configure assessments for skills, or select the Agents tab to configure assessments for agents.

4. In Assessment status, select Enabled.

5. Enter a Description for the assessment.

6. In Assessment criteria, do one of the following:

   • Accept the Default criteria provided by API Center. Optionally remove default criteria that aren't relevant for your organization.

   The following screenshot shows default criteria for skills:

   

   • Add one or more custom criteria.
     1. Select + Add criteria.
     2. Enter a Name and optional Assessment instruction for the criterion.
     3. Enter Minimum score and Maximum score values for the score (for example, 1 and 5).
     4. Enter a Pass threshold value (for example, 3) that indicates the minimum acceptable score for the criterion.
     5. Enter a Weight value that indicates the contribution of the criterion to the total assessment (for example, a weight of 0.3 multiples the score by 0.3, contributing 30% to the total assessment).
     6. Repeat the preceding steps to add more criteria as needed.

7. Select Save.

You can then view assessment results in the API Center portal. For example, view assessment results for each skill on the skill details page.

Related content

• Synchronize API assets from a Git repo
• Register and discover MCP servers in your API inventory
• Set up your API Center portal
• Key concepts in Azure API Center