Introduction
An agent's first release is rarely its last. After people start using it, you refine its instructions, add knowledge and tools, and fix issues that testers and users report. Each of these updates changes an agent that people already rely on. You need a way to make and verify changes without disrupting the version in production.
Application lifecycle management (ALM) is how you update and release an agent safely. It covers the people, processes, and tools that carry an agent from its first requirements through development, testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance. Microsoft Copilot Studio is built on Microsoft Power Platform, so agents follow the same ALM practices as Power Platform apps and flows.
Note
Most practices in this module apply to agents on both the standard harness and the GitHub Copilot harness. Where a task is specific to one harness, the module says so.
In this module, you explore:
- How to plan environments for an agent's lifecycle
- How to package an agent and its dependencies in a solution
- How to configure environment variables and connection references
- How to deploy agents with pipelines and service principals
By the end of this module, you'll be able to move an agent across development, test, and production environments with Power Platform solutions, environment variables, and pipelines, so each update reaches production the same controlled way.