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Agent 365 Skills provide a guided setup path for connecting an existing agent to Agent 365 from a supported coding assistant. You state the outcome you want, such as add observability to this agent, and the skill identifies the project, gathers the required values, makes the integration changes, and checks the result.
Skills run in all coding agents including Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and VS Code agent mode.
To install the skills and follow the onboarding path for your agent, see Quickstart: Connect an existing agent to Agent 365.
Note
Skills replace the earlier setup workflow that used an instructions.md file.
When to use Skills
Connecting an existing agent to enterprise identity, observability, governed tooling, and notifications takes several ordered setup steps. These steps include installing the Agent 365 CLI, validating Azure prerequisites, registering a blueprint, configuring Entra resources, wiring OpenTelemetry exporters, connecting Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and testing locally.
Skills perform those steps in the required order for the selected path and validate the resulting project.
How a skill runs
Each skill follows the same workflow:
- State the outcome you want.
- Let the skill identify the project stack and existing configuration.
- Provide the values it requests, such as the authentication mode.
- Review the code, manifest, and configuration changes it makes.
- Confirm that the project still builds and the integration works.
The seven skills
a365-setup is the entry point. After it validates prerequisites, it routes you down one of two paths, and you follow only that path:
- Standard agent.
a365-setupdelegates tomake-a365-agent. Use this path when the agent needs registration and observability but no user account. - AI teammate.
a365-setupdelegates tomake-ai-teammate, for an agent that needs its own user account. This path requires the Frontier preview program.
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|---|
a365-setup |
Installs the Agent 365 CLI, validates Azure prerequisites, detects the agent stack, then delegates to make-a365-agent or make-ai-teammate. |
make-a365-agent |
Provisions a standard agent that doesn't need its own user account. Registers the agent identity blueprint in Microsoft Entra, creates an agent identity from it, and configures the Entra ID permissions the agent needs, then offers observability and tooling as add-ons. |
make-ai-teammate |
Transforms an agent into an AI teammate with its own user account. Registers the agent identity blueprint and creates an agent identity from it, then adds the hosting layer, message routing, and notifications. Requires a365-setup to have run first. |
instrument-observability |
Wires OpenTelemetry and the Agent 365 tracing exporter so agent spans reach Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Purview, and the Microsoft 365 admin center. Asks for the agent kind and the authentication mode; see Agent identity. |
a365-code-validator |
Validates and diagnoses an existing Agent 365 integration, including instrumentation, Microsoft Entra artifacts, messaging, tool access, and related configuration. Read-only by default. Use instrument-observability to add observability from scratch. |
add-workiq-tools |
Connects Work IQ MCP servers, including Mail, Calendar, and Word, so the agent can read and act on Microsoft 365 data. Requires a delegated permission model, and is skipped automatically when the authentication mode is S2S. |
test-local |
Runs an AI teammate agent locally and opens Agents Playground for interactive testing, with no cloud deployment required. Applies to the AI teammate path. |
Important
make-ai-teammate gives your agent its own user account, including a mailbox and Teams presence. This capability is available only to tenants participating in the Frontier preview program.
You usually invoke a skill by stating the outcome rather than naming the skill. For example, add observability to this agent runs instrument-observability. If your coding assistant exposes the internal a365-code-validator capability, ask it to validate this Agent 365 integration; the capability is also described internally as Validate & Diagnose. Availability and invocation depend on the assistant and installed Skills package. For the request phrasing used at each step, see Quickstart: Connect an existing agent to Agent 365.
Supported stacks
Skills automatically detect the project stack, so you don't need to map your project manually. These are the stacks that Skills detect. The SDK also works with other frameworks.
| Language | Frameworks |
|---|---|
| .NET | Microsoft Agent Framework, Semantic Kernel, Azure AI Foundry |
| Node.js | LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Semantic Kernel, Google ADK |
| Python | Microsoft Agent Framework, LangChain, OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Semantic Kernel, Google ADK |
Safety and repeatability
Skills are designed to apply setup changes without altering your project's existing behavior. Confirm this behavior with the Agent 365 SDK validation checklist.
- Additive and idempotent. Skills don't delete or restructure existing code, and rerunning a skill doesn't duplicate completed work.
- State-aware. Skills detect what's already wired, so they skip rather than repeat completed steps.
- Guard-railed. Skills don't modify files outside your project, and they verify the build still passes before finishing.
Use Skills when:
- You have an existing agent and want to onboard it without writing the integration by hand.
- Your development workflow already includes a coding assistant.
- You want consistent, repeatable onboarding across projects.
Use manual setup when:
- Your environment is nonstandard and each step needs individual control.
- Your organization restricts coding-assistant workflows.
- You're troubleshooting and want to run each step yourself.
For the manual path, use the setup steps in Quickstart: Connect an existing agent to Agent 365, and run the equivalent Agent 365 CLI commands for your environment.