DA-Forge: Streamlining Declarative Agent Creation for Copilot Notebooks

Introduction

DA-Forge is an innovative open-source tool developed by Microsoft, designed to significantly streamline the creation and deployment of Declarative Agents for Copilot Notebooks. This Python-based utility automates a complex, multi-step process, enabling developers and researchers to ground AI agents with specific references like emails, meetings, files, and webpages in a matter of seconds. It transforms what was previously a time-consuming and error-prone manual task into an efficient, one-command operation.

For more details, visit the official repository: microsoft/da-forge

Why Use It and Key Benefits

The process of creating Declarative Agents as a proxy for Copilot Notebooks for research or development purposes traditionally involves significant manual effort and time. Developers often face challenges such as:

• Manual Manifest Creation: Generating complex manifest files with specific formats can take around 40 minutes.
• Unique ID Extraction: Manually extracting and formatting unique IDs from files, emails, and meetings uploaded as Notebook references can consume another 30 minutes.
• Special Formatting Requirements: Each capability type has its own ID structure and JSON schema, adding to the complexity.
• DA Initiation and Sideloading: Multiple manual steps for agent initiation and sideloading are prone to errors and take about 15 minutes.

Collectively, these steps can amount to approximately 85 minutes per agent, coupled with a high error rate.

DA-Forge provides a robust solution by automating this entire process. By simply extracting the socket JSON from your Copilot Notebook configuration, you can deploy a Declarative Agent in roughly 2 minutes. This drastic reduction in deployment time, from 85 minutes to just 2, makes DA-Forge an invaluable tool.

Key features and benefits include:

• Zero External Dependencies: Built purely with Python's standard library, ensuring minimal overhead and easy integration.
• Automated Manifest Generation: Generates manifest files from templates with automatic GUID generation.
• Smart Capability Injection: Automatically categorizes and injects capabilities, handling both regular and experimental types.
• One-Command Deployment: Simplifies the entire workflow, from creation and revision to zipping and sideloading, into a single command.
• Socket-Based Configuration: Separates grounding data from boilerplate, allowing for cleaner and more manageable configurations.

Installation

To get started with DA-Forge, follow these installation steps.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Teams Toolkit CLI for sideloading

Installation Options

Option 1: Install from GitHub (Recommended)

# Install latest release
pip install git+https://github.com/microsoft/da-forge.git

# Or install a specific version
pip install git+https://github.com/microsoft/da-forge.git@v1.0.0

Option 2: Install from Source (for development)

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/da-forge.git
cd da-forge

# Install in editable mode
pip install -e .

After installation, the da-forge command will be available globally.

Examples

Here’s how to use DA-Forge to deploy your Declarative Agents.

Step 1: Set up your project

mkdir my-agents
cd my-agents
mkdir sockets

Step 2: Extract and save socket JSON

Detailed instructions for extracting the socket JSON from your Copilot Notebook configuration can be found in the official documentation: docs/capabilities.md.

Save the extracted socket JSON to sockets/my-agent.json.

Step 3: Deploy your agent

da-forge deploy my-agent

The tool will automatically perform the following actions:

• Use bundled templates from the package.
• Create raw_manifests/ with generated manifest files.
• Create zipped_manifests/ with the deployment package.
• Sideload to Teams (or skip with --skip-sideload).

Your Declarative Agent will then be deployed to Teams with all the grounding context from your Copilot Notebook.

CLI Commands

Deploy an agent:

da-forge deploy <name> [--description TEXT] [--instruction TEXT] [--skip-sideload]

Examples:

# Basic deployment
da-forge deploy my-copilot

# With custom description and instructions
da-forge deploy my-copilot --description "Email assistant" --instruction "Help with emails"

# Skip sideloading (just create package)
da-forge deploy my-copilot --skip-sideload

List available agents:

da-forge list

This command shows all socket files located in the sockets/ folder.

Links

• Official GitHub Repository: microsoft/da-forge
• Teams Toolkit CLI: Learn more about Teams Toolkit CLI
• Capabilities Documentation: Detailed guide on extracting socket JSON
• Development Documentation: Instructions for development setup, testing, and formatting
• License: MIT License