Understand the Microsoft Agent Framework
Unit 2 of 10 · Module 14: Orchestrate a multi-agent solution using the Microsoft Agent Framework
Before you start
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The music school
Think of a music school. Each student plays one instrument well, reads from their own sheet music, and keeps a practice diary. Put them in a room with a conductor, and they can play together. Agent Framework is Microsoft's open-source SDK for building AI agents that work alone or in teams like that. Each agent reasons over a task with a language model, uses tools, and remembers the conversation to decide what to do next. And orchestration lets several agents work toward one goal, with one shared way to build and run them, so you can change how they're coordinated without rewriting the agents themselves.
The parts you'll use
Three parts matter most here. Chat clients connect your agents to a model provider, like Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, or Anthropic, all through the same interface. Tools let an agent act: your own functions, or hosted ones like code interpreter, file search, and web search, which the agent calls when it needs them. And an agent session keeps the conversation going across turns, with each message marked by role: user, assistant, system, or tool.
Why a team framework
So why use it for teams? It mixes agents from different places, including Foundry Agent Service, in one solution. It lets agents specialize, one gathering data, another analysing it, another deciding. It keeps people in the loop where decisions matter. And because it doesn't care which provider sits underneath, you can switch models without changing your agents' code. It grows from a single chatbot to a whole company workflow.
Facts from Microsoft's documentation: Workflow orchestrations in Agent Framework; Microsoft Agent Framework Overview (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.