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Welcome to Microsoft Agent Framework!

Microsoft Agent Framework (MAF) is an open, multi-language framework for building production-grade AI agents and multi-agent workflows in .NET and Python.

Microsoft Agent Framework is built for teams taking agents from prototype to production. It provides a consistent foundation for building, orchestrating, and operating agent systems across Python, .NET and Go, while keeping architecture choices open as requirements evolve, and supports a broad ecosystem including Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, and the GitHub Copilot SDK, with samples and hosting patterns for both local development and cloud deployment.

[!NOTE] For the Go SDK, including its documentation, samples, contribution guidance, and issue tracker, visit microsoft/agent-framework-go.

Is this the right framework for you?

MAF is a strong fit if you:

• are building agents and workflows you expect to run in production,
• need orchestration beyond a single prompt or stateless chat loop,
• want graph-based patterns such as sequential, concurrent, handoff, and group collaboration,
• care about durability, restartability, observability, governance, or human-in-the-loop control,
• need provider flexibility so your architecture can evolve without major rewrites.

Key Features

Explore new MAF capabilities and real implementation patterns on the official blog.

• Python and C#/.NET Support: Full framework support for both Python and C#/.NET implementations with consistent APIs
  • Python packages | .NET source
• Go Support: For the Go SDK, including its documentation, samples, contribution guidance, and issue tracker, visit microsoft/agent-framework-go.
• Multiple Agent Provider Support: Support for various LLM providers with more being added continuously
  • Python examples | .NET examples
• Middleware: Flexible middleware system for request/response processing, exception handling, and custom pipelines
  • Python middleware | .NET middleware
• Orchestration Patterns & Workflows: Build multi-agent systems with graph-based workflows supporting sequential, concurrent, handoff, and group collaboration patterns; includes checkpointing, streaming, human-in-the-loop, and time-travel
  • Python workflows | .NET workflows
• Foundry Hosted Agents (new): Deploy and host your agents to Foundry-hosted infrastructure with just 2 additional lines of code
  • Python samples | .NET samples
• Observability: Built-in OpenTelemetry integration for distributed tracing, monitoring, and debugging
  • Python observability | .NET telemetry
• Declarative Agents: Define agents using YAML for faster setup and versioning
  • Declarative agent samples
• Agent Skills: Build domain-specific knowledge bases from multiple sources—files, inline code, class libraries—for agents to discover and use
  • Skills design
• AF Labs: Experimental packages for cutting-edge features including benchmarking, reinforcement learning, and research initiatives
  • Labs directory
• DevUI: Interactive developer UI for agent development, testing, and debugging workflows
  • See the DevUI in action

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
  • Installation
  • Learning Resources
  • Quickstart
    • Basic Agent - Python
    • Basic Agent - .NET
• More Examples & Samples
• Community & Feedback
• Troubleshooting
• Contributor Resources

Getting Started

Installation

Python

pip install agent-framework
# This installs the standard package set; install `agent-framework-lab` separately for experimental modules.
# It may take a minute on first install on Windows.

.NET

dotnet add package Microsoft.Agents.AI
# For Foundry integration (used in the .NET quickstart below):
dotnet add package Microsoft.Agents.AI.Foundry
dotnet add package Azure.AI.Projects
dotnet add package Azure.Identity

Learning Resources

• Overview - High level overview of the framework
• Quick Start - Get started with a simple agent
• Tutorials - Step by step tutorials
• User Guide - In-depth user guide for building agents and workflows
• Migration from Semantic Kernel - Guide to migrate from Semantic Kernel
• Migration from AutoGen - Guide to migrate from AutoGen

Quickstart

Basic Agent - Python

Create a simple Azure Responses Agent that writes a haiku about the Microsoft Agent Framework

# pip install agent-framework
# Use `az login` to authenticate with Azure CLI
import os
import asyncio
from agent_framework import Agent
from agent_framework.foundry import FoundryChatClient
from azure.identity import AzureCliCredential


async def main():
    # Initialize a chat agent with Microsoft Foundry
    # the endpoint, deployment name, and api version can be set via environment variables
    # or they can be passed in directly to the FoundryChatClient constructor
    agent = Agent(
      client=FoundryChatClient(
          credential=AzureCliCredential(),
          # project_endpoint=os.environ["FOUNDRY_PROJECT_ENDPOINT"],
          # model=os.environ["FOUNDRY_MODEL"],
      ),
      name="HaikuAgent",
      instructions="You are an upbeat assistant that writes beautifully.",
    )

    print(await agent.run("Write a haiku about Microsoft Agent Framework."))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Basic Agent - .NET

Create a s