Model providers

Model providers supply the inference client used by an Agent Framework agent. Your application owns the agent definition, instructions, tools, middleware, and session policy while the provider supplies model inference and provider-hosted capabilities.

For remote or managed runtimes that own an agent definition, permissions, or service-side execution, see Agent Services. For custom framework agent implementations, see Custom agents.

Provider comparison

Provider	Function Tools	Structured Outputs	Code Interpreter	File Search	MCP Tools	Background Responses
Azure OpenAI	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
OpenAI	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Microsoft Foundry	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Anthropic	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌
Ollama	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Foundry Local	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Amazon Bedrock	✅	Varies	❌	❌	❌	❌
Google Gemini	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
ONNX	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Dapr	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies
Mistral	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Important

If you use Microsoft Agent Framework to build applications that operate with any third-party servers, agents, code, or non-Azure Direct models ("Third-Party Systems"), you do so at your own risk. Third-Party Systems are Non-Microsoft Products under the Microsoft Product Terms and are governed by their own third-party license terms. You are responsible for any usage and associated costs.

We recommend reviewing all data being shared with and received from Third-Party Systems and being cognizant of third-party practices for handling, sharing, retention and location of data. It is your responsibility to manage whether your data will flow outside of your organization's Azure compliance and geographic boundaries and any related implications, and that appropriate permissions, boundaries and approvals are provisioned.

You are responsible for carefully reviewing and testing applications you build using Microsoft Agent Framework in the context of your specific use cases, and making all appropriate decisions and customizations. This includes implementing your own responsible AI mitigations such as metaprompt, content filters, or other safety systems, and ensuring your applications meet appropriate quality, reliability, security, and trustworthiness standards. See also: Transparency FAQ

Available providers

Any inference service that provides a Microsoft.Extensions.AI.IChatClient implementation can back a ChatClientAgent.

• Azure OpenAI — Azure-hosted OpenAI inference with Azure identity support.
• OpenAI — OpenAI Chat Completions and Responses APIs.
• Microsoft Foundry — Model inference through a Microsoft Foundry project.
• Anthropic — Claude model inference through Anthropic and supported hosted endpoints.
• Ollama — Local open-source model inference.
• Amazon Bedrock — AWS-managed foundation model inference.
• Google Gemini — Gemini Developer API or Vertex AI inference.
• ONNX — Local ONNX Runtime GenAI inference.
• Dapr — Inference routed through the Dapr Conversation building block.

Conversation history support

The selected API determines whether the remote service can own conversation history and whether the agent can instead use an in-memory or custom ChatHistoryProvider.

Agent connection	Service-managed history	In-memory or custom history
Microsoft Foundry Prompt or Hosted Agent	✅	❌
Microsoft Foundry Responses	✅	✅
Azure OpenAI Responses	✅	✅
Azure OpenAI Chat Completions	❌	✅
OpenAI Responses	✅	✅
OpenAI Chat Completions	❌	✅
Anthropic	❌	✅
Any other IChatClient	Varies	Varies

Service-managed history availability can also depend on the selected service options. See the provider page for configuration details.

SDK and endpoint selection

Several .NET SDKs can connect to Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, or Anthropic. Choose the SDK that matches the service endpoint and authentication model.

AI service	Client SDK	NuGet packages	Endpoint or identifier
Microsoft Foundry project	Azure AI Projects	Azure.AI.Projects, Microsoft.Agents.AI.Foundry	https://<resource>.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/<project>
Microsoft Foundry Models through OpenAI v1	OpenAI	OpenAI, Microsoft.Agents.AI.OpenAI	https://<resource>.services.ai.azure.com/openai/v1/
Azure OpenAI	Azure OpenAI	Azure.AI.OpenAI, Microsoft.Agents.AI.OpenAI	https://<resource>.openai.azure.com/
Azure OpenAI through OpenAI v1	OpenAI	OpenAI, Microsoft.Agents.AI.OpenAI	https://<resource>.openai.azure.com/openai/v1/
OpenAI	OpenAI	OpenAI, Microsoft.Agents.AI.OpenAI	Default OpenAI endpoint
Anthropic on Microsoft Foundry	Anthropic Foundry	Anthropic.Foundry, Microsoft.Agents.AI.Anthropic	Foundry resource name
Anthropic	Anthropic	Anthropic, Microsoft.Agents.AI.Anthropic	Default Anthropic endpoint

Use the Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, or Anthropic page for client construction and authentication examples.

Available providers

Agent Framework Python exposes provider-specific chat clients behind the common agent interface.

• Azure OpenAI — Azure-hosted OpenAI inference with Azure identity support.
• OpenAI — OpenAI Chat Completions and Responses APIs.
• Microsoft Foundry — Model inference through a Microsoft Foundry project.
• Foundry Local — Run supported Foundry models locally.
• Anthropic — Claude inference through Anthropic, Foundry, Amazon Bedrock, or Vertex AI.
• Ollama — Local open-source model inference.
• Amazon Bedrock — AWS-managed foundation model inference.
• Google Gemini — Gemini Developer API or Vertex AI inference.
• Mistral — Mistral AI embedding generation.

Available providers

The Go SDK creates a standard *agent.Agent through provider-specific constructors.

Provider	Package	Import Path
Microsoft Foundry	foundryprovider	github.com/microsoft/agent-framework-go/provider/foundryprovider
OpenAI Chat Completions	openaiprovider	github.com/microsoft/agent-framework-go/provider/openaiprovider
OpenAI Responses	openaiprovider	github.com/microsoft/agent-framework-go/provider/openaiprovider
Anthropic	anthropicprovider	github.com/microsoft/agent-framework-go/provider/anthropicprovider
Google Gemini	geminiprovider	github.com/microsoft/agent-framework-go/provider/geminiprovider

For example, create a Foundry-backed agent from a project endpoint, credential, and model deployment:

a := foundryprovider.NewAgent(endpoint, token, foundryprovider.ModelDeployment(model), foundryprovider.AgentConfig{
    Instructions: "You are a helpful assistant.",
    Config: agent.Config{
        Name: "MyAgent",
    },
})

Next steps

Azure OpenAI