· ai-devtools
Microsoft’s new Copilot harness makes agents easy — until you want to switch
Microsoft is opening up the GitHub Copilot agent harness to outside developers through Microsoft Foundry, bringing the same orchestration infrastructure used across its Copilot products into a managed service for building and deploying autonomous agents.
Announced Wednesday, the Microsoft Copilot harness is now available in public preview through Foundry Agent Service. It comes with built-in sandboxing, reusable skills, MCP integrations, and support for subagents.
Microsoft takes care of running the agent and managing its execution environment, leaving developers to choose a supported model and configure the instructions and tools for their applications. The company is also using GitHub's agent infrastructure across more of its Copilot products.
It's a continuation of the Foundry strategy outlined at Build 2026, which focuses on making AI agents easier for companies to run, manage, and control. Inside the managed Copilot harness Microsoft's harness manages model and tool calls, tracks context, and keeps agents within configured policies. Skills can package instructions, scripts, and supporting resources, while MCP integrations require authentication and approval.
