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5.2. Quick Reference
🎯 Decision: Which knowledge source?
| The scenario says | Answer |
|---|---|
| "External content searchable like SharePoint / alongside M365" | Copilot connectors (ingestion into semantic index) |
| "Answers must reflect live records / current state" | Power Platform connector as knowledge |
| "We already have an index" / "full retrieval control" / "VNet-isolated corpus" | Azure AI Search (vector index, integrated vectorization) |
| "Answers must use our Azure OpenAI deployment on our index" | Azure OpenAI connection on the generative answers node |
🎯 Decision: Which tool type?
| The scenario says | Answer |
|---|---|
| "A governed/custom connector already exists" | Reuse the connector |
| "API spec, only this agent needs it" | Add REST API directly |
| "New operations must appear without republishing" / "shared, evolving toolset" | MCP tools |
| "No API exists — UI only" | Computer use (generative orchestration + dedicated Windows machine) |
🎯 Decision: Which multi-agent mechanism?
| The scenario says | Answer |
|---|---|
| "One team, grouping tools/intents, routing degraded (30–40+ tools)" | Child agent |
| "Another team owns it / reused by several parents / separate ALM" | Connected Copilot Studio agent |
| "Built by developers in Foundry / fine-tuned model" | Connected Foundry agent |
| "Natural-language analytics over lakehouse/warehouse/KQL" | Fabric data agent (no topic redirect; not M365 Copilot) |
| "Different vendor/platform/organization" | A2A protocol (agent card discovery) |
🎯 Decision: Which evaluation method?
| Correct answer is… | Method |
|---|---|
| One exact string (code, number) | Exact Match |
| Must contain specific terms | Keyword Match |
| Same wording/structure expected | Text Similarity |
| Same meaning, any phrasing | Compare Meaning |
| Open-ended, no expected answer | General Quality |
| "Did it use the right tool/topic?" | Tool Use |
| Your own rubric/labels | Custom |
🎯 Decision: Identity and channels
| Audience | Auth | Natural channels |
|---|---|---|
| Employees | Microsoft Entra ID (user context; SSO) | Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot |
| Known external users | OAuth provider (manual config) | Custom website, custom app |
| Anonymous public | No auth — public content only | Custom website, messaging |
| No human (autonomous) | Service/maker connections + supervision | Event/schedule triggers |
🎯 Canonical rules that decide questions
- Node-level data sources override agent-level knowledge (fallback only).
- Variables are topic-scoped by default; global by explicit promotion; system variables are platform-set.
- Flow invoked by an agent needs the "When an agent calls the flow" trigger; error handling is authored via run-after conditions.
- Default solution can't ship managed — build in a custom solution; per-environment values live in environment variables (text / data source / secret); credentials rebind via connection references.
- Approval before prod = pipeline extension; unattended deployment = service principal.
- App Insights needs its connection string configured — nothing flows by default.
- Azure AI Search knowledge: vector index with integrated vectorization, one index per connection, URL/
metadata_storage_pathfield for citations.
Written byAlvin Varughese
Founder•18 professional certifications