Microsoft Foundry Toolkit for VS Code Now Generally Available

Microsoft has officially launched the Microsoft Foundry Toolkit for VS Code (formerly known as AI Toolkit), marking its General Availability (GA). This powerful extension enables developers to build, debug, and deploy AI agents and applications directly within Visual Studio Code, streamlining the entire AI development workflow.

What’s New in the GA Release?

• Curated Model Playground: Instantly browse and interact with over 100+ state-of-the-art models from Microsoft Foundry, GitHub, OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, and more. Compare models side-by-side and export production-ready code in seconds.
• Agent Builder (No-Code/Low-Code): Quickly prototype or build sophisticated AI agents without boilerplate code. Define instructions, link tools from the Foundry catalog, or connect local MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers to have a functional agent running in minutes.
• GitHub Copilot Powered Agent Development: Deep integration with GitHub Copilot and the Microsoft Agent Framework allows you to jumpstart agent creation, often from a single prompt.
• Deep-Cycle Debugging: The Agent Inspector provides real-time workflow visualization, breakpoints, and full local tracing across tool calls and agent chains, moving beyond black-box AI.
• Edge-Optimized Performance: Specialized support for the Phi model family, including fine-tuning, quantization for NPU/GPU, and on-device profiling for optimal performance.
• Seamless Scale: Effortlessly transition from local to cloud deployment. Deploy directly to the Microsoft Foundry Agent Service and run continuous evaluations using pytest syntax within the VS Code Test Explorer.

Getting Started

• Install: Microsoft Foundry Toolkit on VS Code Marketplace
• Quick Start: 3-Minute Getting Started Tutorial
• Documentation & Samples: Docs, Samples, Workshop

Join the Community

Don’t miss the Model Monday event on 4/20 to learn more about building Foundry Agents using VS Code and GitHub Copilot. Share your projects, file issues, or suggest features on the GitHub repository.

Welcome to the next chapter of AI development with Microsoft Foundry Toolkit!