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Getting started with agent configuration

Note

  • The tools and examples in this documentation illustrate current capabilities. Tool names, descriptions, parameters, response formats, and available functionality can change over time.
  • When you build agents, integrations, or orchestration logic, don't hard-code dependencies on specific tool names, parameter structures, tool metadata, or response schemas. Instead, design your solution to discover and use available tools at runtime.
  • As the platform evolves, Microsoft might add, remove, rename, or modify tools and tool metadata. Designing against capabilities rather than specific tool identifiers helps maintain compatibility across service updates.

Use this capability when you want to explore what you can configure in the agent and understand the available customization options for grids, forms, timelines, picklists, resolution strategies, tool visibility, external MCP tool servers, Copilot Studio agents, cross-namespace tool grants, and—when service vocabulary administration is enabled and the vocabulary tool is available to the agent—the service vocabulary (glossary terms and synonyms).

What it does

The assistant provides an interactive, text-based guide to agent configuration. It presents a navigable tree of configuration categories—you can browse top-level categories, drill into specific areas (such as case grid layout or timeline settings), and search for specific options by keyword.

The guide covers both organization-wide settings (applied to all users) and Application Profile-scoped settings (applied to specific user groups). Alongside the layout categories, it also surfaces the agent's extensibility and tooling options—tool visibility, external (third-party) MCP tool server registration, Copilot Studio agent registration, and cross-namespace tool grants—so every maker-configurable area available to your agent is discoverable from one place. When service vocabulary administration is enabled and the vocabulary tool is part of the agent's toolset—typically Customer Service agents, or any agent granted the Service toolset through a cross-namespace grant—the service vocabulary (glossary terms and synonyms) also appears; it is omitted when that tool isn't available to the agent or the capability is turned off, so the guide only lists what the current agent can actually configure. At any level, you can ask for before-and-after examples to see what a configuration change looks like in practice.

Try prompts like

  • What can I configure?
  • Help me set up the agent.
  • Getting started with configuration.
  • How do I customize the case grid?
  • Show me timeline configuration options.
  • What form settings are available?
  • Search config options for picklist.
  • Browse agent configuration for the incident entity.
  • Show me tool visibility.
  • Manage external MCP registrations.
  • Manage Copilot Studio agent registrations.
  • What other agent toolsets can I add.
  • Manage the service vocabulary. (Available when the service vocabulary tool is part of the agent's toolset.)

What you'll see in chat

The assistant responds with a text message showing the current level of the configuration tree. Each entry includes a category name and a brief description. You can navigate deeper by asking about a specific category or search across all options with a keyword.

Helpful tips

  • Start with no specific path to see the root menu of all configuration categories.
  • Say "search for [keyword]" to find configuration options across all categories without navigating manually.
  • Ask "show examples" at any level to see before-and-after previews of what a configuration change looks like.
  • Specify an entity (such as "incident" or "account") to filter options to configurations relevant to that entity type.
  • Choose between "org" scope (organization-wide) and "profile" scope (Application Profile) to target the right configuration layer.

Tip

This guide helps you discover what's configurable. To apply changes, follow up with the specific configuration action the guide recommends.

What happens next

After browsing configuration options, you can continue with prompts like:

  • Show me the grid configuration options.
  • Drill into timeline settings.
  • Search for resolution strategy.
  • Show examples for this option.
  • Save this configuration.

Does this change data?

No, browsing configuration options doesn't change data.

This is a read-only guide. Configuration changes are applied only when you follow up with a specific save action.

Prerequisites

This tool is available on the Dynamics 365 Customer Service MCP server. See the availability note at the top of this page for details. No additional configuration is required.

Tool summary

Property Value
User-facing name Getting started with agent configuration
Internal tool name browse_agent_config_options
Purpose Guides a maker through agent configuration options through an interactive, multi-turn navigable tree

Tool behavior

Guides a maker through agent configuration options through an interactive, multi-turn navigable tree. Covers grids, forms, timelines, picklists, lookups, and resolution strategies, plus the agent's extensibility surfaces—tool visibility, external MCP tool servers, Copilot Studio agents, and cross-namespace tool grants. When service vocabulary administration is enabled and the vocabulary tool is available to the agent—typically Customer Service agents, or any agent granted the Service toolset through a cross-namespace grant—it also covers the service vocabulary (glossary terms and synonyms); that entry is omitted when that tool isn't available to the agent or the capability is turned off. Returns hierarchical menus that the user can drill into, with before/after examples at each level. The primary entry point for configuration discovery.

Annotations

Annotation Value Meaning
readOnlyHint true This tool doesn't modify data.
destructiveHint Not set Not applicable (read-only tool).
idempotentHint Not set Not applicable (read-only tool).
openWorldHint Not set Uses default.

Input concepts

Input Description Required
path path (string, optional). Dot-delimited path to jump to any level of the configuration tree (for example, grid.incident, form, timeline.incident, tool-selection, mcp-registration, copilot-studio, cross-namespace-grant, and—when the service vocabulary tool is available to the agent—service-vocabulary). The service-vocabulary path resolves only when that capability is available for the current agent; otherwise it returns an "Unknown category" result. Omit or pass empty for the root menu. No

Examples toggle

Input Description Required
showExamples showExamples (boolean, optional). When true, returns before/after examples at the current tree level. No

Entity filter

Input Description Required
entity entity (string, optional). Filters the tree to a specific entity logical name (for example, incident, account). No

Configuration layer

Input Description Required
scope scope (enum: org | profile, optional). Targets a specific layer. Omit on first call to let the tool prompt for selection. No

Profile ID

Input Description Required
profileId profileId (UUID string, optional). Required when scope is profile. The tool lists available profile GUIDs if omitted. Varies
Input Description Required
search search (string, optional). Free-text search across category paths, entity names, override-type labels, and capability surfaces. Returns a flat list of matching nodes instead of tree navigation. No

Include layers

Input Description Required
includeLayers includeLayers (boolean, optional). When true, search also considers the educational layers.* subtree. Defaults to false. No

Response and UI behavior

Response type

Text-only

No interactive component is rendered. Returns structured text describing the current tree level with available child paths, descriptions, and navigation instructions. Multi-turn: the user drills deeper by providing a path in subsequent calls.

Routing notes

Use browse_agent_config_options when:

  • The user asks "what can I configure?", "help me set up", "getting started".
  • The user wants to explore options before committing to a save.
  • The user asks "how do I customize X?" without specifying exact patches.
  • The user wants to see examples of what configurations look like.

Don't use browse_agent_config_options when:

  • The user already knows what they want to save and provides specific details. Route directly to save_agent_config with the appropriate scope.
  • The user asks to list existing configurations. Use list_agent_configs with the appropriate scope.
  • The user asks about their personal preferences. Use list_user_prefs.
Tool Relationship
save_agent_config Saves org-level or profile-level configurations after discovery
get_agent_config_capabilities Quick permissions check before configuration
list_agent_configs Lists what's already configured at org or profile level

Data mutation classification

Read-only entry point with downstream mutation potential.

The browsing itself does not change data. Follow-up save_agent_config actions triggered from the guided workflow can create or update configurations.

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