copilot-studio

name	copilot-studio
description	Microsoft Copilot Studio agent building. Use when: creating Copilot agents, multi-agent orchestration, autonomous agents, MCP integration, knowledge sources, generative actions, Agent API for Power Pages, ALM for agents, testing agents.

Skill: Microsoft Copilot Studio

When to Use

Trigger when building, configuring, testing, deploying, or reviewing Copilot Studio agents (formerly Power Virtual Agents) — including standalone agents, Copilot extensions, autonomous agents, and multi-agent orchestrations.

Agent Types

Type	Description	Use Case
Copilot agent	Custom agent with topics + generative AI	Customer support, employee self-service
Copilot extension	Extends Microsoft 365 Copilot	Enterprise Copilot with custom knowledge
Autonomous agent	Event-driven, runs without user interaction	Monitoring, proactive notifications
Connected agent	Agent-to-agent via A2A protocol	Cross-domain orchestration
Embedded agent	Agent embedded within another agent	Specialized sub-agent for delegation

⚠️ REQUIRED: Load Sub-Files Before Implementation

SKILL.md is a summary only — it is NOT sufficient for implementation.

The detailed content (complete payloads, XML templates, working examples, edge-case handling) lives in sub-files in the same directory as this SKILL.md. Before writing any code, you MUST use read_file on the sub-files relevant to your task:

• Topics & Conversation Authoring — topic types, trigger phrases, conversation flow design, variables, conditions, topic management
• Knowledge Sources — Dataverse, SharePoint, websites, files, Graph, configuration, content moderation, grounding
• Multi-Agent Orchestration — embedded agents, connected agents, A2A protocol, agent delegation, cross-domain patterns
• Autonomous Agents — Agent Flows in Power Automate, generative actions, event-driven triggers, Automation Center governance, computer use (Wave 1 2026)
• MCP Integration — MCP as tool pattern in Copilot Studio, connector infrastructure (VNet, DLP, auth), when MCP vs connector actions
• Channels & Deployment — Teams, website, mobile, Omnichannel, Agent API for Power Pages, authentication per channel
• ALM, Governance & Testing — solution packaging, environment promotion, adversarial testing, analytics, Copilot tuning

Anti-Patterns

• No fallback topic configured (agent goes silent on unrecognized input)
• Generative answers enabled without content moderation
• No escalation path to a human agent
• Hardcoded values in topic actions instead of environment variables
• Agents outside of solutions (can't be promoted via ALM)
• No adversarial/prompt injection testing before deployment
• Using authentication-required actions without configuring agent authentication
• Overly broad knowledge sources (agent responds to off-topic queries)
• No analytics monitoring after deployment (can't measure agent effectiveness)
• Using MCP tools for schema creation instead of direct Web API (MCP is for reads/queries)
• Multi-agent orchestration without defined security boundaries between agents
• Autonomous agents without human-in-the-loop gates for destructive actions

Related Skills

• power-automate — Agent Flows, plugin actions via flows
• azure-openai — BYOM, AI architecture decisions
• dataverse — Structured knowledge sources
• security — Agent authentication configuration
• alm — Solution packaging for agent promotion
• power-pages — Agent API for custom chat experiences