Building Declarative Agents for Copilot with VS Code

Looking to extend the power of AI assistants within your daily productivity workspace? Building custom declarative agents allows you to tailor Copilot to your specific business data and workflows without writing complex backend code. This text-based course guides you through the foundational concepts of declarative agents, teaching you how to provision, configure, and refine them. You will transition from understanding basic agent architecture to deploying a functional agent that utilizes custom knowledge sources and adheres to precise system instructions. What you'll learn: - Understand the core architecture and terminology of declarative agents within the Copilot ecosystem; - Configure agent manifests and define custom instructions using structured JSON in VS Code; - Integrate custom knowledge bases to ground your agent's responses in relevant data; - Apply basic prompt engineering principles to control the behavior and tone of your agent; - Test and debug your declarative agent locally using developer tools; - Address security, privacy, and data boundaries when deploying agents. The course begins with essential definitions and schema structures, before moving on to hands-on configuration files, knowledge integration, and testing workflows. You will progress step-by-step through reading practical explanations and analyzing code snippets. This course is designed for beginners, IT professionals, and developers who want to customize AI assistants. No prior experience with agent development or programming is required. Start reading today to build your very first custom declarative agent and streamline your productivity.