Add a sub-agent (preview)

[This article is prerelease documentation and is subject to change.]

Use sub-agents to let your primary agent delegate a focused intent, such as billing or technical support, to a specialist agent that's built directly inside the same orchestration.

Tip

Before you add a sub-agent, review best practices for working with sub-agents, including how to keep sub-agents mutually exclusive and how to reference them from other agents' instructions.

Prerequisites

Add a sub-agent

  1. Sign in to Copilot Studio.

  2. Open the primary agent you want to add a sub-agent to.

  3. On the Build tab, select Add a sub-agent.

  4. In the Name field, enter a name for the sub-agent (up to 42 characters).

  5. In the Description field, describe the intent this sub-agent handles (up to 1,024 characters). Make the description specific enough that the orchestrator can distinguish it from your other sub-agents and connected agents.

  6. In the Instructions section, describe how the sub-agent should behave, including its role, tone, and any rules or guidelines it must follow (up to 20,000 characters).

  7. Add the skills, tools, and knowledge this sub-agent needs to handle its intent.

  8. If the sub-agent needs data from the primary agent, or needs to return data to it, configure input and output variables. Mark a variable as required if the sub-agent can't run without it - the orchestrator then collects that value before routing to the sub-agent. For output, choose whether the sub-agent's response is returned verbatim (passed back to the user exactly as the sub-agent generated it) or summarized (condensed by the primary agent before it's shown to the user).

  9. Save the sub-agent.

Test routing to a sub-agent

  1. On the agent navigation bar, select the Preview tab.

  2. Send a message that matches the sub-agent's intent.

  3. Verify that the response reflects the sub-agent's instructions, skills, tools, and knowledge.

  4. Send a message outside the sub-agent's intent to confirm the primary agent or another sub-agent still handles it.

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