Add Agents to a Workflow
Unit 5 of 10 · Module 12: Build agent-driven workflows using Microsoft Foundry
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Specialists at the bench
Picture a museum's conservation lab. When an object arrives, it passes from specialist to specialist: one identifies it, one checks its condition, one plans the repair. In a workflow, agents are those specialists, the parts that reason and decide. Each one has its own purpose, model, instructions, and tools. You add one with an Invoke agent node. Pick an existing agent from your project, or create a new one right there in the designer, with its own tools, knowledge, memory, and guardrails. When the node runs, the workflow hands the agent some context, like the user's message or a variable, and gets its reply back.
One specialist, many workflows
Good specialists get reused. A single ticket classifier can sit in many different workflows, while separate resolution agents handle what happens next. Keeping each agent focused on one job makes workflows easier to change: improve the classifier once, and every workflow that uses it gets better.
Standard forms and labeled drawers
The lab doesn't let each specialist scribble free notes; they fill in a standard condition form with fixed boxes. Agents can do the same with structured output. On the agent's Details tab, open the parameters, set the text format to JSON Schema, and paste a schema, such as a category, a confidence score, and a summary of the issue. Now every reply has the same shape, which matters when later nodes depend on it to route requests or set variables. Then, in the node's settings, save the agent's message, or its JSON output, into a variable, like filing the form in a labeled drawer. Any later step can open that drawer: to branch, to pass it to another agent, or to show it to the user. And never put secrets in a schema, a prompt, or a saved variable.
Facts from Microsoft's documentation: Build a workflow in Microsoft Foundry (Preview) (CC BY 4.0), rewritten in Loop's own words and examples. Narration, animation, and quiz by Loop. Microsoft, Azure, and Microsoft Foundry are trademarks of Microsoft. Loop is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.