---
id: botbuilder-schema
version: "4.17.1"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: abandoned
---

# botbuilder-schema — BotBuilder Schema

License: permissive · Maintenance: abandoned · Downloads: 1.3M/mo

## What it is and what it does

BotBuilder-Schema is a data serialization package that defines the message structures and types exchanged between bots and users in Microsoft's Bot Framework. It serves as the contract layer for wire protocol communication, ensuring that bot applications and the framework can serialize and deserialize messages consistently.

The package is a foundational dependency for Bot Framework applications written in Python, providing the schema definitions needed to construct and parse bot activities, messages, and other framework entities. It requires Python 3.7.0 or later and depends on msrest for HTTP operations and urllib3 for connection handling.

Use it for:

- Building chatbots using the Microsoft Bot Framework that need to serialize and deserialize bot activities and user messages.
- Integrating custom bot logic with Bot Framework services that rely on standard message schema definitions.
- Developing bot connectors or middleware that must work with Bot Framework's wire protocol.
- Testing bot applications by constructing valid Bot Framework message objects programmatically.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Provides serialized data schemas and message types for communication between bots and users in the Microsoft Bot Framework ecosystem.

Yes, but with caution. The package is stable and widely used (1.3M+ monthly downloads), with no known vulnerabilities and permissive MIT licensing. However, the repository is archived and abandoned, meaning no future updates or bug fixes will be released. Install it only if you are committed to the Bot Framework ecosystem and can accept that this foundational dependency will not receive maintenance.

## Install

pip install botbuilder-schema
uv add botbuilder-schema
poetry add botbuilder-schema

## Installing botbuilder-schema

Before you install: Low install friction with only two runtime dependencies (msrest, urllib3). However, the repository is archived and marked abandoned as of the latest commit on 2026-01-05, with no active maintenance.

License in practice: Licensed under MIT, a permissive license allowing broad use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install botbuilder-schema

from botbuilder.schema import Activity, ActivityTypes

activity = Activity(
    type=ActivityTypes.message,
    text="Hello, bot!"
)

Requires Python >= 3.7.0

Verify before relying:

- Whether the abandoned status affects compatibility with current Bot Framework versions or if the schema remains stable enough for ongoing use.
- Whether msrest and urllib3 versions are pinned or have known compatibility constraints with modern Python versions.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: abandoned
- Downloads: 1.3M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

bot framework schema, botbuilder message types, bot framework serialization, microsoft bot schema, botbuilder data structures, bot-framework, microsoft, archived

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