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AI Agent Instructions

James Rouse 20 Reputation points
2026-06-10T11:50:38.38+00:00

Hello my AI agent I made I tried to edit the instructions and I pressed update and now I want to go back to the old instructions I have but it is not in there. is this possible to find old instructions is it on the one drive somewhere ?

Microsoft Copilot | Windows Copilot | App

Answer accepted by question author

Thomas4-N 17,215 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
2026-06-12T06:43:59.8566667+00:00

Hello James Rouse,

Thanks for reaching out. The exact answer depends a bit on which agent you built — could you confirm which one?

  • Copilot Studio agent
  • Copilot Pages
  • A declarative agent in OneDrive (the .agent file)
  • A custom agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot / Copilot Chat

A few quick notes:

  • If it's a Copilot Pages agent/page, there's actually a built-in version history — open the page and use the left-arrow at the top right to browse and restore previous versions.
  • If it's a declarative agent sitting in OneDrive as a .agent file, the file itself has OneDrive Version History — right-click the file in OneDrive > Version history, and you may be able to restore an earlier copy from there.
  • If it's Copilot Studio, unfortunately there's no native rollback. The only practical recovery path is if you (or someone) previously exported the solution as a .zip; otherwise the overwritten draft is the current state.

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  1. AI answer

    2026-06-10T11:50:59.5333333+00:00

    Previous versions of agent instructions are not stored as separate files in OneDrive and are not directly recoverable there.

    For agents that support instruction versioning, use the built-in version history instead of looking in OneDrive:

    1. Open the agent setup (for example, from the Agents (preview) page or Agent Playground, depending on where the agent was created).
    2. In the instructions area (for example, Agent - Instructions), look for a version/history option such as Get earlier version or a version history menu.
    3. Select an earlier version and restore it.
    4. Test the restored version to confirm it behaves as expected.

    If no version history is available in the UI, the overwritten instructions can’t be retrieved from OneDrive as a file.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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