Microsoft
Developer Blogs

Wrapping things up.

Learn how custom-built AI agents are dramatically improving the .NET MAUI contribution workflow, reducing issue resolution time by 50-70% while increasing test coverage and code quality.

Earlier this week we release the public preview for our Azure DevOps MCP Server. Today we are excited to let you know that the Azure DevOps MCP Server is now available to use in Microsoft Foundry. For those who are new to Foundry, Microsoft Foundry is a unified platform for building and...

Reaching the modern day.

In this post we explore the evolution from Azure IoT Operations Data Processor Pipelines to Dataflows, why we adopted a hybrid strategy with custom Rust pods, and the architectural lessons we learned building event detection systems at the edge.

Learn what's new in Visual Studio Code 1.112 Read the full article

We all know this, even if we don't like to admit it: modern infrastructure can scale infinitely, but human understanding doesn't. We've all seen it happen - organizations going from managing dozens of servers to thousands of containers, from deploying weekly to deploying hundreds of...

We're excited to announce the General Availability of PowerShell 7.6, the next Long Term Support (LTS) release of PowerShell. PowerShell 7.6 is built on .NET 10 (LTS), continuing the alignment between PowerShell and the modern .NET platform. PowerShell 7.6 includes reliability...

New azd ai agent run and invoke commands let you start and test AI agents from your terminal—locally or in the cloud.

Authentication tokens exist to answer one question: is this caller authorized to do this? They are not intended to be a stable data interface, a schema you can depend on, or an input into application logic. If your application decodes tokens and reads claims from them, this is an...

Remember when we announced the Public Preview of DiskANN vector indexes back in November and mentioned that once you created the index, your table became read‑only? Yeah… about that... 😅 We shipped early because the demand for Vector search in SQL was overwhelming. We knew the...

Handling Long-Running Operations with Background Responses AI agents powered by reasoning models can take minutes to work through complex problems — deep research, multi-step analysis, lengthy content generation. In a traditional request-response pattern, that means your client sits...

The MSSQL extension for VS Code v1.41 continues to evolve, delivering features that make SQL development more integrated, more powerful, and more developer-friendly. In this release, we're introducing the Public Preview of Schema Designer with GitHub Copilot, Data API builder, and SQL...

Read how inline image attachments are handled when they’re programmatically added to a mail item's signature or body in Outlook on the web and the new Outlook for Windows

Double the size, double the fun.

Taming the Noisy Inbox: How I Used MCP to Automate Email and Teams Triage How the Model Context Protocol (MCP) turns your AI coding assistant into a workplace productivity engine — connecting Microsoft 365 data to your terminal workflow.   The Problem We All Share If you work...

Part 2 of the Azure Skills Plugin series Previously: Announcing the Azure Skills Plugin This post is all about getting you up and running. I won't go deep on capabilities, architecture or anything like that here - that's coming in future posts in this series. The goal is to...

We're back with a fresh PowerToys release – PowerToys 0.98! This month introduces the new Command Palette Dock, along with a refreshed Keyboard Manager experience and many other improvements across the utilities. You can grab the update by checking for updates in PowerToys or by...

Guest blog post on building a real time assistant using OpenAI Realtime API using .NET, F#, Microsoft.Extensions.AI and .NET MAUI.

We're excited to announce the Cursor plugin for Azure Cosmos DB bringing AI-powered database expertise, best practices guidance, and live database connectivity directly into your coding workflow. Whether you're designing a new data model, optimizing queries, or building a RAG...

Appeasing the invisible return address predictor.

When we released the local Azure DevOps MCP Server, it gave customers a way to connect Azure DevOps data with tools like Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code through GitHub Copilot Chat. The next step was to make this experience easier to get started with and to enable it for services...

The next-gen Foundry Agent Service is generally available today with end-to-end private networking, Voice Live integration, expanded MCP authentication, GA evaluations with continuous monitoring, and hosted agent deployments in six new Azure regions.

Back in July, we launched the Awesome GitHub Copilot Customizations repo with a simple goal: give the community a place to share custom instructions, prompts, and chat modes to customize the AI responses from GitHub Copilot. We were hoping for maybe one community contribution per...

The FOSSASIA Summit 2026 was an incredible gathering of developers, open-source contributors, startups, and technology enthusiasts from across the region. This year, Azure Cosmos DB and Azure DocumentDB were present at the summit with both technical sessions and a dedicated booth, giving...

Get the Inside Scoop on Visual Studio Subscriptions, Straight to Your Inbox  A few weeks ago I was talking with a Visual Studio Enterprise subscriber. Seasoned .NET developer. Ships production code. Knows his stack inside and out.  During the conversation I mentioned one of...

Doing the math backwards.

We’re excited to announce the general availability of private network support for Azure Cosmos DB mirroring in Microsoft Fabric, enabling customers to replicate operational data into Fabric from Azure Cosmos DB accounts secured with private endpoints or virtual networks while continuing...

We keep doing this thing where we solve a problem, celebrate the victory, then realize we've created three new problems we didn't even know existed. Remember when manually configuring servers was the bottleneck? So we built containers. Great! Now we're orchestrating thousands of them....

We are releasing patches for our self‑hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly recommend that all customers stay on the latest, most secure version of Azure DevOps Server. The latest release, Azure DevOps Server, is available from the download page. This patch addresses an...

New azd ai agent show and monitor commands help you diagnose hosted AI agent failures directly from the CLI.

Optimizing out the unnecessary probes comes with its own complexity.

Code-Defined Skills, Script Execution, and Approval for Agent Skills in Python When we introduced Agent Skills for Microsoft Agent Framework, you could package domain expertise as file-based skill directories and have agents discover and load them on demand. Now, the Python SDK takes...

Learn how VS Code uses AI across its own development workflow with GitHub Copilot agent mode, automated testing, and AI-powered code review. Read the full article

At GDC this year, we shared how machine learning is becoming foundational to real time graphics, and how DirectX is evolving to meet that shift across shader level and model level ML. ML is no longer a niche optimization or a postprocess trick. It’s increasingly embedded throughout the...

Java has powered some of the world’s most mission‑critical systems for decades and that’s a big part of why we’re excited to be back with the community at JavaOne 2026 (March 17–19 in Redwood City). At Microsoft, we get to work with Java teams every day: folks shipping at...

Agent harness is the layer where model reasoning connects to real execution: shell and filesystem access, approval flows, and context management across long-running sessions. With Agent Framework, these patterns can now be built consistently in both Python and .NET. In this post,...

On March 12th, 2026, the DirectX team and our hardware partners hosted DirectX: Bringing Console-Level GPU Developer Tools to Windows at GDC. We shared our dream of bringing console-level GPU developer tools to Windows, and today we are announcing a major step toward that goal...

See how the modernize-dotnet agent helps you assess apps, create upgrade plans, and modernize .NET projects from Visual Studio, VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and GitHub.

An out-of-band release of .NET 10.0.5 to fix a critical debugger crash affecting macOS users with Visual Studio Code.

One of the weirdest calling conventions you'll see.

Today we announced the innovation we’re bringing in solving shader compilation for the ecosystem at our GDC Talk: Advanced Shader Delivery for Windows. Want to find out what this means for solving shader compilation for your title and customers? Read on! State of the Industry Long...

If you use build service identities like Project Collection Build Service to call Advanced Security APIs, the Advanced Security permission changes in Sprint 269 broke that. We restricted API access for build identities as a security improvement but failed to provide an early notice for...

Today we’re releasing the public preview of DirectStorage 1.4 and the initial public preview of the Game Asset Conditioning Library. Together, they introduce Zstandard (Zstd) compression as an option for game assets on Windows. This new support meets the needs of the gaming ecosystem,...

Join us for Azure Cosmos DB Conf 2026, a free global, virtual developer event focused on building modern applications with Azure Cosmos DB. Date: April 28, 2026 Time: 9:00 AM–2:00 PM PT Where: Streaming live on the Microsoft Developer YouTube channel, with additional...

Government agencies have an increased need for secure, verifiable, and compliant cloud environments that adhere to data sovereignty regulations, operate in a Zero Trust framework, and help reduce exposure to insider threats. Today, Microsoft marks a major milestone in secure cloud...

Don't take steps that are too large.

Find out about the new features in .NET 11 Preview 2 across the .NET runtime, SDK, libraries, ASP.NET Core, Blazor, C#, .NET MAUI, and more!

A recap of the latest servicing updates for .NET and .NET Framework for March 2026.

Save the date and tune in for our free, livestream event on March 23. Discover Aspire and learn how it can transform the way you build and deploy your distributed apps and agents.

Oh, this old thing?

Part 1 of the Azure Skills Plugin series Coding agents like GitHub Copilot and Claude Code are great at code, but getting your app to production on Azure is not just about writing code. Really, it is about making the right calls. Which service fits this app? Which SKU fits this...

Learn what's new in Visual Studio Code 1.111 Read the full article

Introducing the dotnet/skills repository and how .NET agent skills can improve coding agent workflows.

Building AI agents is getting easier. Deploying them as part of a real application, with multiple services, persistent state, and production infrastructure, is where things get complicated. Developers from the .NET community have requested whether a real-world example that shows running...

When I first found Visual Studio Dev Essentials, it felt like discovering a hidden door in the developer toolkit world. I’d heard about free tools and cloud credits, but I wasn’t sure if it would really matter in day-to-day coding life. The short answer: it absolutely...

Today we’re announcing the general availability of Email and SMS one‑time passcode (OTP) as second‑factor MFA for Native Authentication in Microsoft Entra External ID. This enables developers to add step‑up security to native sign‑in and sign‑up flows while keeping users fully...

Look for the conflicting definitions to see where they are coming from.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is now embedded as an in-app sidecar within Power Apps, Dynamics 365 Sales, and Dynamics 365 Customer Service—removing the need to switch between apps to find context or complete steps. 

February brings Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6 with 1M-token context, GPT-Realtime-1.5 and GPT-Audio-1.5, Grok 4.0 GA, the Microsoft Agent Framework reaching Release Candidate, and the Foundry REST API quietly going GA — laying the foundation for imminent SDK GA announcements across Python, .NET, JS/TS, and Java.

We’re improving how add-ins appear on the ribbon in Outlook on the web and the new Outlook on Windows. These updates make add-ins easier to find and align the experience across Outlook clients.

Today we are excited to announce the Release Candidate (RC) of TypeScript 6.0! To get started using the RC, you can get it through npm with the following command: npm install -D typescript@rc TypeScript 6.0 is a unique release in that we intend for it to be the last release based on...

A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download.

It's already gone. If you need more information, you should have been remembering it.

When setting up an experiment is complex, agents can automate the process to make it faster and more reliable.

Join us at GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 for a deep dive into Visual Studio, GitHub Copilot, PowerToys, and the Windows tools that speed up your daily dev workflow. We'll show how these tools work together to boost productivity and cut friction across your entire inner loop. Session...

We briefly paused our quarterly release cycle to focus on reliability and performance, but now we're back with Windows Terminal 1.25! We are also updating Windows Terminal stable to version 1.24, which will include all of the features from this previous blog post. Some notable features...

Discover what’s new in the v1.0 release of the official MCP C# SDK, including enhanced authorization, richer metadata, and powerful patterns for tool calling and long-running requests.

Perhaps it's because you dispatched it.

For the last decade, platform engineering has relied on explicit API interaction layers: CLIs, SDKs, pipelines, wrappers, and UI workflows that translate human intent into machine‑safe API calls. AI agents are now short‑circuiting much of that stack. By combining natural language...

  Hey WinUI developers! If you’re new around here, WinUI Gallery is the go-to app for exploring WinUI 3 controls, samples, design guidance, and handy tools — all in one place. Today, we’re excited to announce WinUI Gallery 2.8, bringing jump list support, new samples,...

Explore agent orchestration, extensibility, and continuity in VS Code 1.110: lifecycle hooks, agent skills, session memory, and integrated browser tools. Read the full article

MSVC Build Tools v14.51 improves performance through a wide range of new optimizations.

What's new in the Visual Studio Code February 2026 Release (1.110). Read the full article

When JSON Met Graph Part 2 of 4 - The Multimodal Database Series A note on naming. Throughout this series, when we say "SQL Server 2025" we also mean Azure SQL. The multimodal capabilities we discuss - native JSON, graph, vector, and columnstore - are available across both the...

The excitement is building as we head into the 2026 Game Developer Conference and the DirectX team has a lot to share. We will be showcasing major updates in asset streaming, GPU tooling, ML-powered real-time graphics on Windows, and shader compilation at...

Of course, anything can happen if you break the rules.

The new azd appservice swap command makes deployment slot swaps fast and intuitive.

Learn GitHub Copilot CLI with this free, 8-chapter hands-on course. Review code, generate tests, debug issues, and build custom agents and skills - all from your terminal. No AI experience needed. Works with GitHub Copilot Free. Clone the repo or open in Codespaces to get started.

Just some useless trivia.

Data API builder (DAB) 1.7+ delivers secure MCP-based CRUD access with deterministic, policy-enforced query generation and an upcoming aggregate tool that enables complex, production-safe analytical questions without exposing raw SQL to AI agents.

You get notifications that might not make sense.

The JavaScript AI Build‑a‑thon Season 2 starts today! Join a free, four‑week, hands‑on program—from Local AI and RAG pipelines to multi‑agent hackathon—designed specifically for JavaScript/TypeScript developers.

Windows App Development CLI v0.2 is here! This release is driven largely by community feedback and packs in native .NET project support, manifest placeholders that eliminate hardcoded executable names, Microsoft Store Developer CLI integration, a revamped help experience, and more....

Modern software development is moving fast—and AI is now a practical part of how Microsoft developers design, build, and ship applications every day. From writing code in Visual Studio and VS Code, to building cloud-native apps on Azure, developers are looking for ways to stay...

You can now equip your Microsoft Agent Framework agents with portable, reusable skill packages that provide domain expertise on demand — without changing a single line of your agent's core instructions. With built-in skills providers for both .NET and Python, your agents can discover...

We are excited to release a new update to the Team Calendar extension. This update includes a series of visual refinements across the extension, introducing a more consistent design language, smoother transitions when expanding and collapsing sections, improved contrast for better...

Making sure it triggers when you need it, and not when you don't.

Java is the backbone of enterprise software engineering, and the conversations happening around it right now are the most exciting they've been in years. From AI-assisted development workflows to Kubernetes performance tuning, the community is moving fast - and JCON Europe 2026 is one of...

Running MongoDB at scale eventually forces a trade-off: invest heavily in managing your own infrastructure or move to a managed service and risk losing the compatibility and portability your team depends on.  Azure DocumentDB is a fully managed, MongoDB-compatible database on...

If you want to skip the explain and get started super quick with adoption + impact insights, use gh-devlake to deploy a GitHub Copilot impact dashboard in a few CLI commands. So! You've rolled out GitHub Copilot to your engineering teams. You've got the built-in dashboards. You...

Today, we are pleased to announce that Shader Model 6.9 and other features have been officially released with Agility SDK 1.619 and complementary DXC 1.9.2602.16. Many of these features have been in preview status since 2025. Simultaneously, we are releasing a handful of new preview...

Today we released PIX 2602.25 and 2602.25-preview, which can be downloaded here. These releases include everything in the previous 2601.15 release, plus: 2602.25: includes support for all of the new D3D12 features released today in Agility SDK 619.0, including Shader Model 6.9, DXR...

Discover how Microsoft.Extensions.VectorData brings unified vector database access to .NET - one interface for semantic search across any vector store with built-in support for embeddings, filtering, and RAG patterns.

Introducing Fence Barriers We are excited to share the preview release of Fence Barriers (Tier-1), a new capability now available in AgilitySDK 1.719-preview (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx12agility/). Fence Barriers expand on Enhanced Barriers to provide support for...

Now officially released, Shader Execution Reordering (SER) is an addition to DirectX Raytracing that enables application shader code inform hardware how to find coherency across rays so they can be sorted to execute better in parallel.  SER support is a required feature in Shader...

DirectX Raytracing (DXR) now supports Opacity Micromaps (OMMs), enabling hardware to handle alpha tested geometry more efficiently than relying only on costly AnyHit shader invocations. At GDC 2025 DXR 1.2 was announced including OMMs, and you can see it discussed in this: GDC...

Azure SDK releases every month. In this post, you'll find this month's highlights and release notes.

Using an Is­Dialog­Message extension point.

Learn how we extended next edit suggestions to work across your entire file, reducing friction and improving productivity in GitHub Copilot. Read the full article

How we built a production-ready MCP server with OAuth 2.1 authentication and On-Behalf-Of flow for Microsoft Graph, navigating a rapidly evolving specification.

Part 1 of 4 - The Multimodal Database Series This is a four-part series about what happens when a single database engine handles relational, document, graph, vector, and analytical workloads natively - and what you stop paying for when it does. You spin up a database, point an agent...

The MSSQL Extension for VS Code continues to evolve, delivering features that make SQL development more integrated, more powerful, and more developer-friendly. In version v1.40.0, we're introducing the ADS Migration Toolkit, Basic Database Management, Flat File Import, Database Backup...

This post announces the February 2026 release of the Azure Developer CLI (`azd`).

Process the message before you let Is­Dialog­Message see it.

We move towards spring 2026 with strong momentum across the SharePoint Framework and an increasing sense of excitement across the ecosystem. SPFx continues to be a foundational platform for building intelligent, secure, and scalable experiences across Microsoft 365, with adoption growing...

Customers have asked for greater user control over add-in launch behavior in Office. We are making three adjustments to our platform to address this customer feedback.

Vibe Coding. IntelliSense on Steroids. Intention-Based Development. Call it what makes you happy - it's "just" the next evolutionary step in software development for me. Which let me build my stranded 82-year-old retirement-resistant mom an ersatz time-study app when her dongle died at midnight.

This month’s Visual Studio update continues our focus on helping you move faster and stay in flow, with practical improvements across AI assistance, debugging, testing, and modernization. Building on the momentum from January’s editor updates, the February release brings smarter...

Azure MCP Server now offers first-class Python support via PyPI and uvx, making it easier than ever for Python developers to integrate Azure into their agentic workflows.

Intercepting the flow in your message loop.

Last year we published AI Dev Gallery, an open-source app full of interactive Windows AI examples. A common follow-up question from Electron developers has been: “How can we build similar on-device AI experiences in our Electron apps?” In this blog, we’ll walk through how we built...

Sniffing the synchronous keyboard state is still not precise enough.

Data API builder (DAB) supports multi-source configurations Data API builder (DAB) connects to your database with a safe REST or GraphQL endpoint. But DAB is not limited to just one database. Using a multi-source configuration, you can connect to more than one database simultaneously. ...

Sniffing the asynchronous keyboard state.

Agentic systems have some discretion in the parameters they sent to tooling, but there are cases, such as experimentation, when you need 100% adherence to a set of parameters.

We're thrilled to announce that Microsoft Agent Framework has reached Release Candidate status for both .NET and Python. Release Candidate is an important milestone on the road to General Availability — it means the API surface is stable, and all features that we intend to release with...

We're happy to announce that Microsoft Agent Framework is now in Release Candidate status for both .NET and Python. Release Candidate is an important milestone on the road to General Availability — it means the API surface is stable, and all features that we intend to release with...

C++ code navigation and build system tooling play an important role in the developer inner-loop. Code navigation tooling provides a precise, semantic understanding of your codebase, while build system tooling helps you express build configurations and variants for reproducible builds. In...

Agents in Visual Studio now go beyond a single general-purpose assistant. We're shipping a set of curated preset agents that tap into deep IDE capabilities; debugging, profiling, testing alongside a framework for building your own custom agents tailored to how your team works. Built in...

Summarizing the flow.

Today we are releasing the first preview of the Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools version 14.51. This update, shipping in the latest Visual Studio 2026 version 18.4 Insiders release, introduces many C++23 conformance changes, bug fixes, and runtime performance improvements. Check out the...

Catch up on all the new models, audio updates, fine-tuning expansions, and SDK updates from Microsoft Foundry spanning December 2025 and January 2026 — including GPT-5.2, Codex Max, DeepSeek V3.2, FLUX.2, and the azure-ai-projects v2 beta consolidation.

The February 2026 release This release includes the Python Environments extension... Keep on reading to learn more!

For decades, DBAs relied on linked servers to stitch data together. If you needed data from two places, you wired them up and moved on. It worked. It was straightforward. It felt native to SQL. But what if linked servers are not an option? What if policy blocks them? What if one of the...

In April 2025, we announced the deprecation schedule for legacy TFVC check-in policies. This change was required due to limitations in how those policies were previously implemented and stored. The old policies have been marked as obsolete, and you can replace them by selecting the...

I guess it could, but why bother?

Planned team investments for 2026 for PowerShell, OpenSSH, DSC, and related tooling.

Run JMESPath queries on azd JSON output, including error messages.

Perhaps we missed it at first, but Copilot is more than comfortable with SQL. This goes beyond autocomplete. This is moving from nothing to a working database without leaving our tools. Have we really arrived? Yes, sort of. For database engineers and app engineers alike, we have crossed...

We're excited to announce the first wave of speakers for Microsoft JDConf 2026, our flagship community event for Java at Microsoft. Whether you’re architecting enterprise microservices, modernizing legacy systems, or building intelligent applications, JDConf 2026 will equip you with the...

Final build, final, final, final 2, ship this one.

One of the challenges teams face when working with large boards or displaying multiple fields on work item cards is limited screen space. This became even more noticeable with the rollout of the New Boards hub, which introduced additional spacing and padding for improved readability....

Is it really a trick when reading the file is the purpose of the program?

In the rapidly evolving landscape of large language models (LLMs), achieving precise control over model behavior while maintaining quality has become a critical challenge. While models like GPT-4 demonstrate impressive capabilities, ensuring their outputs align with human...

A new release of the Microsoft build of Go is now available for download.

See if it matches the scan code.

Java developers face a tough trifecta: keeping mission-critical systems running, modernizing legacy apps, and weaving AI into real engineering workflows, all without increasing risk. At DevNexus 2026, the Microsoft Java team is tackling these challenges head-on.  This...

Introduction The SharePoint Framework (SPFx) has undergone some important changes in how it handles Entra ID app registration and security models. Here you can find additional details about what was updated and about the new application IDs used by SPFx. These changes have important...

The SQL + AI Datathon is a hands‑on challenge designed to show how the foundations for building modern, intelligent applications with SQL. Over a set of guided missions and a focused open hack, you’ll learn how to combine SQL with embeddings, semantic search, and Retrieval...

Check whether it is an extended key.

When we launched the Microsoft Learn Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server in June 2025, our goal was simple: make it effortless for AI agents to use trusted, up-to-date Microsoft Learn documentation. GitHub Copilot and other agents are increasingly common, and they need to be able to...

Today we are announcing the beta release of TypeScript 6.0! To get started using the beta, you can get it through npm with the following command: npm install -D typescript@beta TypeScript 6.0 is a unique release in that we intend for it to be the last release based on the current...

GitHub Copilot testing for .NET is now available in Visual Studio 18.3, offering AI-powered tools to quickly create, build, and run unit tests. With flexible prompts and full IDE integration, it supports testing from single methods to entire solutions, helping reduce repetitive tasks and speed up feedback. Try it and share your feedback to shape its future.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have reached a point where general intelligence is no longer the bottleneck. The real challenge in enterprise AI systems behavioral alignment ensuring models that produce consistent, reliable, policy-compliant outputs on a scale. Prompt engineering and...

Refactoring at scale is a time-consuming and error-prone process for developers. In large codebases, developers have relied on manual searches and incremental edits across multiple files to accomplish these tasks. Modern development workflows depend on fast and accurate code navigation...

You can prevent the item from becoming hot-tracked.

azd now supports direct deployments to Azure App Service slots—quick, clear, and slot-aware for the first time.

In the first post of this series, we introduced how Azure Advisor helps Azure Cosmos DB users uncover opportunities to optimize efficiency and make smarter decisions. This follow-up dives deeper into one of the most important categories of guidance: performance. If you've ever dealt...

Find out about the new features in .NET 11 Preview 1 across the .NET runtime, SDK, libraries, ASP.NET Core, Blazor, C#, .NET MAUI, and more!

We are releasing patches for our self‑hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly recommend that all customers stay on the latest, most secure version of Azure DevOps Server. The latest release, Azure DevOps Server, is available from the download page. To make it easier to find...

A recap of the latest servicing updates for .NET and .NET Framework for February 2026.

The Vercel AI SDK is an open-source TypeScript toolkit that provides the core building blocks for integrating AI into any JavaScript application. It works with 20+ AI providers out of the box—including OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and more—so you can write your...

The HLSL team is excited to announce the formation of Ecma Technical Committee 57; a committee to standardize the High Level Shading Language. The formation of this committee marks an important milestone in HLSL's development and strengthens Microsoft's commitment to HLSL as a...

Asking nicely, and asking a lot of people.

Introduction: A New Paradigm for AI Application Development In enterprise AI application development, we often face this dilemma: while cloud-based large language models are powerful, issues such as data privacy, network latency, and cost control make many scenarios difficult to...

Applications often need to know what data looked like before. Who changed it, when it changed, and what the previous values were. Rebuilding that history in application code is tedious and error prone. This is especially valuable when exposing a database to an AI agent through MCP servers...

It's your one chance to make amends.

This blog post summarizes changes to the vcpkg package manager as part of the 2025.12.12 and 2026.01.16 registry releases and the 2025-11-13, 2025-11-18, 2025-11-19, 2025-12-05, and 2025-12-16 tool releases. These updates include support for targeting the Xbox GDK October 2025 update,...

User preferences and settings are fundamental components of modern web applications. When developing SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions, the ability to store and manage user-specific configurations across devices and sessions becomes crucial for delivering personalized experiences....

We welcome guest author, Matt Kruczek, to share how to build a complete Skills Executor in .NET, combining Azure OpenAI with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) C# SDK to bring the same agentic patterns to the Microsoft ecosystem. You’ll see how to define reusable skills, connect local and external tools, and orchestrate intelligent agent loops—so enterprise teams can standardize AI behavior without hardcoding business logic.

Applications often need access to data without needing access to everything. Social Security numbers, email addresses, and phone numbers are common examples. Storing them is required. Exposing them broadly is not. This is especially valuable when exposing a database to an AI agent through...

Preventing the resize cursor from appearing.

Sometimes applications need to remove data without actually losing it. Soft delete keeps rows in the database while making them invisible to normal application access. This is especially valuable when exposing a database to an AI agent through MCP servers like SQL MCP Server, where safety...

Learn to secure Aspire distributed applications with Microsoft Entra ID authentication. Use AI skills with GitHub Copilot for a 5-minute setup, or follow the detailed guide to understand JWT Bearer protection, OIDC sign-in, and automatic token handling.

An announcement of .NET Framework 3.5 servicing updates on new versions of Windows.

A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download.

Strengthen Identity Security and Eliminate Account Keys Identity is becoming the new security perimeter. As organizations modernize their cloud applications, long‑lived secrets and shared keys introduce unnecessary risk. Azure Cosmos DB now fully supports Microsoft Entra ID for both...

Deny changes to the width.

VS Code has become the unified interface for all your coding agents. Manage local, background, and cloud agents in one place, use Claude and Codex agents alongside Copilot, and benefit from open standards like MCP and Agent Skills. Read the full article

How we built a minimal, scalable GitOps workflow for edge applications using Azure IoT Operations, Azure DevOps, and a multi-repo strategy. Includes pipeline templates and scripts for real-world deployments.

When Visual Studio 2026 reached General Availability in November, it included several versions of the Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools: 14.50 (initially shipped with Visual Studio 2026) 14.44 (initially shipped with Visual Studio 2022 version 17.14) 14.29 (initially shipped...

Learn what is new in the Visual Studio Code January 2026 Release (1.109). Read the full article

We are currently living through the "fragmentation phase" of the AI revolution. If you’re a developer, you know the drill: You have Claude Code open for reasoning. You have ChatGPT open for logic checks. Then you drop into your terminal to actually build the thing—manually...

This is a post to assist customers with known bigger issues or workarounds, in the interest of remaining transparent on this project and unblocking customers and companies. Please see links below to our Discord server for further discussion and workarounds. Updated March 17, 2026. Main...

After a busy January (catch up here), we're shifting focus to reliability and refinement. This month is about tightening core workflows, improving agent stability, and building on the MCP foundations we've been laying. Agent Mode & Coding Agents Reliability is the priority this...

The `azd` dev container feature now supports automatic extension installation.

We recently released the GitHub Copilot Coding Agent for Azure Boards to all customers. If you’re not already familiar with it, we recommend taking a few minutes to read this blog post for an overview and details. One of the top requests from customers using the GitHub Copilot Coding...

I've set up a lot of dev machines in my life. Traditionally, this takes a lot of time to get everything just right, but now there's a faster way with WinGet Configuration files. Let me show you how to go from a fresh Windows install to a fully configured dev environment with a single...

You can ask the header to be non-resizing.

Creating Teams Live Events via the Microsoft Graph isBroadcast API is deprecated. We encourage developers to use Virtual Event APIs instead.

Series: Building Serverless Applications with Azure Functions and Azure Cosmos DB In the first post of this series, we focused on establishing the fundamentals of serverless architecture by building and deploying a simple HTTP API using Azure Functions and FastAPI. The post centred on...

If you use editor productivity extensions for Visual Studio 2026, there's good news—they can now load faster! Extension developers with existing MEF-based editor productivity extensions should read this blog to learn about recent changes and how they might be affected.  We...

A little trivia.

Hello Java customers! We are happy to announce the latest January 2026 patch & security update release for the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK. Download and install the binaries today. OpenJDK 25.0.2 OpenJDK 21.0.10 OpenJDK 17.0.18 OpenJDK 11.0.30 Check our release...

If you spend time in the Azure Portal’s using Azure Cosmos DB Data Explorer, you know it’s a “lots of screens, lots of tabs, lots of work happening” kind of place. So I’m excited to share a small upgrade that makes a big difference: Dark Mode is now supported in Cosmos DB Data...

Are you even compiling the correct file?

Microsoft Agent Framework now integrates with the Claude Agent SDK, enabling you to build AI agents powered by Claude's full agentic capabilities. This integration brings together the Agent Framework's consistent agent abstraction with Claude's powerful features, including file editing,...

The case of "Bring your own SAFEARRAY."

This post announces the January 2026 release of the Azure Developer CLI (`azd`).

Standardizing Dimensions: Completing the Unified Data Model Introduction A Unified Data Model is only as strong as the consistency of its dimensions. This article explains why standardizing dimensions is the critical final step in completing the Unified Data...

Azure SDK releases every month. In this post, you'll find this month's highlights and release notes.

In Episode 111 of Azure Cosmos DB TV, host Mark Brown is joined by Yohan Lasorsa to explore how developers can build agent-powered applications using a fully serverless architecture. This episode focuses on a practical, end-to-end example that demonstrates how transactional application...

Find a way to take ownership.

Introducing Dev Proxy v2.1 with configuration hot reload and stdio proxying

The User Configuration API is now available in the beta endpoint in Microsoft Graph. Use it to create, read, update, and delete user configuration objects in Exchange Online mail folders.

Modern infrastructure work is increasingly agent driven, but only if your AI actually understands the platform you’re deploying. This guide shows how to turn GitHub Copilot CLI into an Azure Cosmos DB aware infrastructure expert by loading the Azure Cosmos DB Agent Kit. In under a...

Learn how Microsoft.Extensions.AI provides a unified API for building intelligent .NET applications with any LLM provider - one interface, endless possibilities, with built-in middleware, telemetry, structured outputs and more.

SPFx is powering the future of Microsoft 365 with AI driven portals and deep integrations across SharePoint Teams and Viva. The January 2026 update shares new features and the roadmap for the next evolution built for the AI era. This is a transparent community driven journey that we shape together.

You have to use the original pointer, but even that won't be good enough.

With the launch of Visual Studio 2026, we announced a Private Preview of GitHub Copilot app modernization for C++, which reduces the cost of adopting the latest version of the MSVC Build Tools. We used the feedback we received from our many Private Preview participants to make...

We're excited to announce the latest 1.22 release of the CMake Tools extension for Visual Studio Code. This update brings a host of new additions, including project outline updates for filtering and bookmarking CMake targets in large CMake projects and expanded CTest support to customize...

Microsoft Agent Framework now integrates with the GitHub Copilot SDK, enabling you to build AI agents powered by GitHub Copilot. This integration brings together the Agent Framework's consistent agent abstraction with GitHub Copilot's capabilities, including function calling, streaming...

Productivity Improvements This month, we are bringing you a series of small yet long requested and popular features to let you better control and customize your editor. These features are currently only available in the Insiders channel and will be available in Release soon. Fast...

The concerns when adding a feature to an existing API.

When developers hear "cloud" and "AI," their first thought is often about cost. "How much will this cost me to learn? Can I build something meaningful without racking up a surprise bill?"   Budget Bytes is a new series is designed to inspire developers to build affordable,...

Meet the .NET team at NDC London 2026 to explore the latest in .NET 10, Azure, and AI-powered development through sessions and 1:1 meetups.

We’re launching Evals for Agent Interop, a starter evaluation kit that provides curated scenarios and representative data that emulate real digital work, and an evaluation harness that organizations can use to self-run their agents across Microsoft 365 surfaces.

Two ways of preserving the data.

VS Code now supports MCP Apps, enabling AI agents to display interactive UIs for richer developer workflows. Read the full article

In Episode 110 of Azure Cosmos DB TV, host Mark Brown is joined by Sajeetharan Sinnathurai to explore how the Azure Cosmos DB MCP Toolkit is changing the way developers build, deploy, and scale AI agents using real application data. As agentic AI systems evolve, one challenge continues...

This week we shipped the GitHub Copilot SDK which takes the agent loop from the Copilot CLI and makes it easy to embed in other applications. We’ve been using, improving, and extending Copilot CLI for the last few months and it’s sparked new ideas about what it means to have the right...

You can wrap it in an IDisposable.

Learn how to streamline AI development by using Microsoft Devtunnels to connect local services with Azure Machine Learning evaluation pipelines, eliminating deployment delays while maintaining comprehensive cloud-based validation.

The Azure Cosmos DB Agent Kit is an open-source collection of skills that teaches your AI coding assistant (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Gemini CLI) expert-level Azure Cosmos DB best practices. Install with one command, get production-ready guidance instantly. The Challenge Every...

It doesn't do much, but it saves typing.

Last year, we launched our new GitHub Copilot build performance capabilities in Private Preview. With help from our fantastic C++ community, we gathered insights and addressed key feedback. We’re happy to share that GitHub Copilot build performance for Windows is now in Public Preview....

Code will be generated, not written. Most enterprise AI workloads are net-new microservices. Modular, greenfield work. Perfect for coding agents. The catch? Out-of-the-box agents lack domain knowledge about your SDKs and patterns. But frontier LLMs are extraordinarily sample efficient....

You are replacing the window procedure, not the dialog procedure.

We're excited to announce that the Azure Performance Diagnostics Tool for Java is now available for preview as part of the Azure SRE Agent platform, bringing intelligent, automated Java performance diagnoses. Currently supporting Java workloads deployed to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)...

Today we released PIX version 2601.15, which can be downloaded here. This release includes everything in the previous 2509.25 release, plus: A new Intel plugin with many new features and improvements Many new Buffer Viewer and Buffer Formatter improvements Misc other bug fixes...

A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download.

Dealing with emergencies.

PowerToys 0.97 is here! This release packs in a ton of improvements to Command Palette, introduces a brand-new mouse utility called CursorWrap, expands CLI support across several utilities, and includes plenty of other refinements. Get the update by checking for updates in PowerToys or...

We’re introducing a limited private preview that allows you to add additional fields as filters on backlog and Kanban boards. This long-requested feature helps teams tailor their views, focus on the work that matters most, and provide feedback as we iterate toward general availability.

An old flag from 16-bit Windows.

App developers require performance, stability, and cross-platform consistency such as fast startups, smooth UI, and seamless code sharing across Windows, Android, and iOS as these factors directly impact user experience, development efficiency, and business outcomes. High performance and...

We thought it was a good time to check in and highlight some of the work happening in Azure Repos. In this post, we’ve covered several recent improvements, along with a preview of features that are coming soon. To stay up to date, be sure to visit the Azure DevOps Roadmap. These...

The tab index number is an authoring concept, not a runtime concept.

Introduction  This post is Part 1 of the series Serverless Application Development with Azure Functions and Azure Cosmos DB, where we explore how to build end-to-end serverless applications using Azure Functions for compute and Azure Cosmos DB for storage. Together, these services...

This blog details how the Azure AI Evaluation SDK can be used to assess the performance of a small language model for function calling, such as Phi-4-mini-instruct, and view the results in Microsoft Foundry.

Today, we are excited to announce that GPT-5.2, Azure OpenAI’s newest frontier reasoning model, is available in Microsoft Azure for U.S. Government Secret and Top Secret cloud environments. This release marks another significant milestone in our mission to bring cutting edge AI...

The strings are an implementation detail.

We are excited to introduce Microsoft Entra PowerShell v1.2.0, a major update that delivers full support for Agent Identity Blueprints, expanded application configuration capabilities, and modernized invitation APIs aligned with Microsoft Graph models. This release consolidates...

Are you wasting time reviewing code for nits on code standards, project preferences, or important contribution guidelines? We know the pain. It’s all too easy for best practices and those tiny but critical team details to slip through the cracks, resulting in inconsistencies,...

Every production system has a story behind it. The scaling limit you didn’t expect. The data model that finally clicked. The tradeoff you had to make under real-world pressure. The solution that worked—and the lessons you’d pass on to the next team. Azure Cosmos DB Conf...

How we built docfind, a high-performance client-side search engine using Rust and WebAssembly, and how GitHub Copilot accelerated development. Read the full article

Earlier this year, we launched Agent Academy: Recruit, a foundational learning path designed to help makers and developers get started with building agents in Copilot Studio. The response exceeded our expectations. Since launch, thousands of learners have worked through the Recruit...

If you build agents with the Copilot Studio extension for Visual Studio Code, you already know the fastest way to iterate is to treat your agent like software: version it, review changes, and promote it through environments with confidence. Today, the Microsoft Copilot Studio extension...

This blog post documents the transformation of the azure-search-openai-demo (a Python/TypeScript RAG application) through the addition of Aspire for local development and observability. It demonstrates how Aspire can enhance polyglot applications without requiring rewrites.

Finding all the clipping parents.

A recap of the latest servicing updates for .NET and .NET Framework for January 2026.

Finding the correct clipping parent.

Scenario: When Every Millisecond Counts in Gaming Imagine millions of players logging in at the exact moment a new game season launches. Leaderboards light up, achievements tally, and in-game shops buzz with transactions. In these high-stakes moments, speed and reliability aren’t...

Build interactive Android widgets with .NET MAUI using RemoteViews, intents, and shared data.

A deep dive into the technical challenges of keeping .NET's product repositories synchronized with our Virtual Monolithic Repository using a custom two-way algorithm.

Aspire 13 brings comprehensive JavaScript and TypeScript support to cloud-native development, enabling you to orchestrate Node.js applications, Vite frontends, and JavaScript services alongside your .NET projects with unified tooling and seamless integration.

Preventing the cursor from pointing to nothing.

Looking at child objects.

Learn what is new in the Visual Studio Code December 2025 Release (1.108). Read the full article

Scaling AI agent development with Aspire and Git worktrees by solving port conflicts through automatic port allocation scripts and an MCP proxy layer that enables parallel AI agents to orchestrate and debug complete distributed systems simultaneously.

It's old and rather simple, but we like simple.

How to read this article This article is a reflection based on hands-on experience and is written for engineers and technical leaders who are facing a new application modernization effort and want to build a realistic mental model before reaching for tools. If you are new to...

The MongoDB EF Core provider now supports Queryable Encryption and Vector Search. Learn how to encrypt sensitive data while querying it and build AI-powered semantic search applications directly with EF Core.

We are very excited to announce the public preview for private endpoint support for Azure Cosmos DB Mirroring with Microsoft Fabric mirroring. This feature allows you to preserve the enhanced network security on your data in Cosmos DB from virtual networks or private endpoints, allowing...

A hands‑on walkthrough of building MCP servers that can plug AI applications into Azure Cosmos DB The Model Context Protocol (MCP) has established itself as the ubiquitous standard for connecting AI applications to external systems. Since its release, there have...

You'll have go to a larger scope.

XAML Studio Open Sourced It's been over 8 years since what became XAML Studio was started. And from nearly the beginning, it was always envisioned as an open-source project… So, it's with great pleasure that I'm happy to announce that day has finally come! XAML Studio is now an...

Supporting re‑ranking has been one of the most common requests lately. While not always essential, it can be a valuable addition to a solution when you want to improve the precision of your results. Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal, standardized API for a “re‑rank” call...

The Cloud at Hyperscale: ARM’s Mission and Growth Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is the backbone of Azure’s resource provisioning and management, orchestrating billions of daily requests from customers around the globe. ARM manages all resources for Azure: VMs, Storage, Databases,...

Could do with a little less rotating.

A practical introduction to modern AI for .NET developers.

Applying the rotation trick to our new problem.

I always enjoy the quiet stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s one of the few moments in the year when things slow down just enough to reflect on what actually resonated. While many of us were unplugging, our digital team was doing the opposite, editing and publishing 19...

A different algorithm, employing a different kind of cleverness.

A variation on the constant-memory rotation.

A breakthrough year for modernization, AI‑assisted development, Agentic AI development, and platform innovation 2025 was one of the most significant years yet for Java at Microsoft. From the arrival of OpenJDK 25 as the newest Long‑Term Support (LTS) release, to AI‑powered...

Let's take a look back at the amazing .NET videos, events, and live streams from 2025!

Another year gets relegated to history.

The recurring problem of synchronous resumption.

Let's look back at the most-read .NET blog posts published in 2025, from .NET 10 to AI, performance, and developer tooling.

Choosing the color-key and other brief discussions.

You can register for a memory notification.

You have to find new ways of going faster.

The struggle for null termination.

Understanding the difference between keys and characters for accelerators.

So transfer them to his office, or so it seems.

SPFx is powering the future of Microsoft 365. From AI-driven portals to seamless integrations across SharePoint, Teams and Viva, SPFx is driving innovation at scale. This monthly blog series kicks off our journey into the next evolution - transparent, community-driven, and built for the AI era. Let’s shape what’s next, together.

I struggled to get started. For ages, I kept putting off building this website, creating a new programming language for Visual Studio, and coming up with fresh color themes. Each project looked overwhelming, and I couldn’t find the time or motivation to jump in. It all just felt like...

The destructor serves as the "finally".

Delivering high-quality software requires clarity, speed, and collaboration. That’s why we introduced the New Test Run Hub in Azure Test Plans. A modern, streamlined experience designed to make test execution and analysis fast and intuitive. And we’re excited to announce that this...

This post announces the December release of the Azure Developer CLI (`azd`).

Security vulnerabilities don't fix themselves. Someone needs to track them, prioritize them, and actually ship the fix. If you've ever tried to manage security alerts alongside your regular sprint work, though, you know the friction: you're looking at an alert in one tab, switching to...

It's a placeholder because the shortcut is to an MSI application.

Azure AI Foundry is now Microsoft Foundry. Read the latest announcements about agents, models, tools and more.

1. Introduction AI coding agents/assistants such as GitHub Copilot have become common in modern software engineering workflows. Their strengths—rapid pattern completion, context-aware suggestions, and the ability to learn style from local code—stem from broad training on large...

Stick to Unicode and you'll be fine.

Introduction to a scaleable and secure turnkey architecture for deploying Copilots connected to Azure AI Search.

Connecting the Dots: How Graph Databases Drive Innovation In today’s data-rich world, organizations face challenges that go beyond simple tables and rows. Whether it’s uncovering hidden relationships in social networks, detecting fraud, or powering recommendation engines, graph...

DirectX12 shipped in 2015 with a simple goal: give developers more control so games run faster, look better, and scale across Windows PC and console. Over the last decade, DirectX 12 delivered on that promise. We added features and made it easier for developers to focus on gameplay &...

Aspire 13.1 is here with CLI-based MCP for AI agents, dashboard improvements, Azure updates, and TLS termination support.

Working out the implications.

Email is a key part of how people get things done, whether it’s booking a reservation, confirming a package delivery, or managing a cab reservation. But as inboxes become increasingly cluttered, important transactional information often gets buried. Users are forced to open multiple...

In November, we introduced C++ code editing tools for GitHub Copilot as a Private Preview, focusing on partnering with customers to tackle one of the common, taxing challenges for C++ development: refactoring at scale. Since then, we've listened to feedback and refined our tooling to make...