Archive

Four orchestration patterns in MAF — and when to pick each

Sequential, Concurrent, Handoff, and Custom WorkflowBuilder. Four shapes the Microsoft Agent Framework ships out of the box, when to pick each, and the gotchas that cost me a day.

Devui Discovery

Serving a whole directory of agents at once by exporting a module-level agent variable.

DevUI directory discovery serves a folder of agents at once: each entity dir exports a module-level agent variable, then devui ./entities finds them all.

step14 · Code Interpreter (hosted tool)

This lesson teaches the hosted tool: a marker that lets the Foundry service run code the model writes, instead of a Go function you implement.

Attach hostedtool.CodeInterpreter, a zero-value marker with no Run method, so Foundry executes model-written Python in a sandbox to solve sin(x) + x^2 = 42.

The 12-chapter reference architecture, in 102 Python files

Microsoft published a 12-chapter reference architecture for multi-agent systems and a separate framework — the Microsoft Agent Framework — to build them. Here is what the 102 Python files actually contain and how they map to the chapters.

Foundry Hosted Agent

Packaging an agent as a container on Foundry Agent Service with ResponsesHostServer.

A Foundry hosted agent runs as a managed container: wrap the agent in ResponsesHostServer to serve POST /responses, and set store=False so the host owns history.

step13 · Plugins (grouping tools)

This lesson teaches how to bundle related function tools onto a Go type and attach the whole group to an agent as one slice.

Bundle GetWeather and GetCurrentTime onto one Go type, expose them as a tool.Tool slice, and let the model call both in a single turn — plugins as an organizing idea.

Lessons from Converting 18 Agents in 90 Days

The patterns that worked, the traps we fell into, and what we'd do differently.

What worked, what was hard, and what we'd do differently. Real numbers: 18 agents, 90 days, 5 governance policies, 4 provider swaps.

Openai Endpoints

Speaking the OpenAI Chat Completions and Responses wire protocols on both sides of an agent.

Agent Framework speaks the OpenAI Chat Completions and stateful Responses protocols; the Python pivot consumes any base_url endpoint while a Foundry agent stays the backend brain.

step12 · Middleware (guardrail + logger)

This lesson teaches a middleware chain where a guardrail can block a run before the model is ever called, chained ahead of a logger.

Chain a guardrail middleware that yields its own refusal and skips the model ahead of a logger — short-circuiting a harmful request offline before Foundry is called.

Deployment & A2A: From ADK's Web Deploy to Microsoft Agent Framework's Scalable Architecture

Running agents on Cloud Run, exposing via A2A, and wiring into production systems.

Deploy Microsoft Agent Framework multi-agent systems on Cloud Run with A2A agent-to-agent communication, autoscaling, load balancing, and production observability dashboards.

Durable Extension

Making agent threads and orchestrations crash-proof with AgentFunctionApp on Durable Task infrastructure.

The Durable Extension checkpoints agent threads on Durable Task infra: wrap agents in AgentFunctionApp and yield durable-wrapper calls inside orchestration triggers.

step11 · An Agent as a Function Tool

This lesson teaches the simplest form of multi-agent delegation: wrapping one agent as a tool another agent can call.

Wrap a specialist WeatherAgent with agenttool.New into a tool.Tool and hand it to a French TravelAgent — one model orchestrating another with no workflow engine.