agent-framework-foundry

What it is and what it does

Agent Framework Foundry is a Python SDK layer that bridges the open-source Agent Framework with Microsoft's hosted Foundry platform on Azure. It provides chat clients, preconfigured agents, and memory providers that connect to Foundry-managed resources, allowing you to build and deploy AI agents that leverage hosted tools (code interpreter, web search, file search, image generation, MCP servers) without managing infrastructure yourself.

The package centers on two main patterns: FoundryAgent for agents already deployed in a Foundry project (which invoke tools transparently through the service), and FoundryChatClient for local agents that connect to Foundry toolboxes and hosted tool factories over MCP or direct API calls. It also includes utilities to convert a locally-defined Agent into a Foundry PromptAgentDefinition for publishing back to the platform, keeping your agent definition as a single source of truth.

Use it for:

• Build a multi-turn conversational agent that uses web search, code execution, and file analysis without hosting those tools yourself.
• Manage reusable tool configurations (toolboxes) once in Foundry and attach them to multiple agents across your organization.
• Convert a locally-tested Agent into a hosted Foundry prompt agent for production deployment without rewriting configuration.
• Integrate Foundry-hosted agents into Python applications that need to call external tools like SharePoint, Fabric, or custom MCP servers.
• Create agents that leverage Azure AI Search, Bing grounding, or computer-use capabilities through factory methods.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Provides Microsoft Foundry integrations for the Agent Framework, including chat clients, preconfigured agents, embedding clients, memory providers, and toolbox management for building AI agents on Azure.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and low install friction. It is the official bridge between the open-source Agent Framework and Microsoft's Foundry platform, so if you are building agents on Azure Foundry or need to integrate Foundry-hosted tools into Python agents, this is the required integration layer. If you are not using Azure Foundry, it is not applicable.

Install

agent-framework-foundry on PyPI

pip install agent-framework-foundry

uv add agent-framework-foundry

poetry add agent-framework-foundry

Installing agent-framework-foundry

Before you install

Active maintenance with a recent release (2026-08-14) and no known vulnerabilities. Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel. Depends on agent-framework-core, agent-framework-openai, aiohttp, and two Azure AI packages, all of which are standard dependencies in the Azure SDK ecosystem.

License in practice

Licensed under MIT (permissive), so you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart

pip install agent-framework-foundry

from agent_framework import Agent
from agent_framework.foundry import FoundryChatClient

async with Agent(
    client=FoundryChatClient(...),
    instructions="You are a helpful assistant.",
    tools=[FoundryChatClient.get_web_search_tool()],
) as agent:
    result = await agent.run("What tools are available?")
    print(result.text)

Requires Python 3.10 or later and valid Azure Foundry credentials (project endpoint and authentication).

Verify before relying

• Whether azure-ai-projects>=2.1.0 is required for all toolbox features or only for authoring APIs.
• Performance characteristics and latency expectations when calling hosted Foundry tools.
• Exact scope of experimental features (FOUNDRY_TOOLS, FOUNDRY_PREVIEW_TOOLS, TO_PROMPT_AGENT) and their stability timeline.

Package facts

Evidence: agent_framework_foundry-1.11.0-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

More Application Frameworks packages

Further reading