M365 Agents Toolkit — Toolchain Knowledge
Reference material for the toolchain itself: the atk CLI, the m365agents.yml lifecycle, environment files, project templates, manifests, the Agents Playground, and publishing.
This content is capability-agnostic — it applies to every project type the toolkit supports: Teams bots, declarative agents, API plugins, Copilot connectors, Office add-ins, custom engine agents, RAG agents, message extensions, tabs.
For SDK code patterns (handlers, AI prompts, Adaptive Cards, MCP, OAuth, etc.), see the sibling ../experts/ folder. For Slack-vs-Teams platform comparison, see ../docs/.
Files
| File | Scope |
|---|---|
| templates.md | Full atk new -c capability catalog: declarative agents (8 variants), Copilot connectors, Office add-ins, Teams bots/tabs/message extensions, custom engine agents, RAG agents |
| commands.md | atk CLI reference outside the lifecycle: add action, add auth-config, regenerate action, share, collaborator, env, install/uninstall, upgrade, doctor |
| lifecycle-cli.md | Lifecycle CLI commands (provision, deploy, package, validate, preview) and the full m365agents.yml action catalog |
| manifest-and-yaml.md | appPackage/manifest.json + appPackage/declarativeAgent.json, YAML action field reference, common-mistake table, signInAudience configuration |
| environments.md | env/.env.\{name\} + .user files, <code v-pre>${{VAR}}</code> resolution, SECRET_ prefix, .localConfigs flow, multi-environment isolation |
| playground.md | Agents Playground (agentsplayground CLI, .m365agentsplayground.yml, channel emulation, activity simulation) |
| publish.md | Publishing workflow: sideload → org catalog (atk publish) → Teams Store / Partner Center; version bumping, validation requirements |
Capability matrix
| Capability | Templates | What applies from this folder |
|---|---|---|
| Declarative agents | declarative-agent, declarative-agent-action*, declarative-agent-with-*, declarative-agent-meta-os-*, declarative-agent-typespec | All except playground.md (DAs run in M365 Copilot, not Playground). Sideload via M365_APP_ID. |
| API plugins | declarative-agent-action-from-existing-api, add action | All. Use commands.md for atk add action and manifest-and-yaml.md for OpenAPI integration. |
| Copilot connectors | copilot-connector | templates.md, commands.md, lifecycle-cli.md, environments.md. |
| Custom engine agents | basic-custom-engine-agent, weather-agent, foundry-agent-to-m365, coffee-agent, data-analyst-agent-v2 | All. Compute deploy via lifecycle-cli.md (arm/deploy + azureAppService/zipDeploy). |
| Teams bots / tabs / message extensions | bot, tab, message-extension, teams-agent*, teams-collaborator-agent, bot-sso | All. Pair with ../experts/teams/ for SDK code patterns. |
| Office add-ins | office-addin-outlook-taskpane, office-addin-wxpo-taskpane, office-addin-excel-cfshortcut, office-addin-config | templates.md, commands.md, lifecycle-cli.md. Add-in-specific runtime is out of scope here. |
Cross-references
- Workflow how-tos that consume this knowledge live one level up: ../create-project/, ../test-playground/, ../test-teams/, ../provision-deploy/, ../troubleshoot/.
- For Teams-bot SDK code (DevtoolsPlugin, ConsoleLogger, runtime handlers, Adaptive Cards): see ../experts/teams/.
- For deploying without ATK (manual
azCLI walkthrough): see ../experts/deploy/azure-bot-deploy-ts.md.