Browse All Posts (102)

Bruno Capuano and Angel Hernandez discuss practical enterprise patterns for adding AI capabilities to modern .NET applications, with a focus on moving from prototypes to production. The session covers architecture approaches, AI-powered workflows, and tools and practices that help teams build reliable intelligent experiences.

Matt Gordon and Anna Hoffman show how to set up anomaly detection in Microsoft Fabric using streaming change events from Azure SQL/SQL Server, then trigger alerts and actions with Fabric components like Eventstream, Eventhouse, and Activator.

Mark Downie introduces the Visual Studio July update, centered on a new Agent (Preview) in Copilot Chat built on the GitHub Copilot SDK. The post also covers built-in .NET and Azure skills, org-level Copilot custom instructions, attaching Git branches as chat context, and improved MSVC toolset discovery for reproducible C++ builds.

Greg Ose summarizes the security changes GitHub and npm shipped over recent months to break common supply chain attack paths, focusing on preventing workflow compromise, reducing credential exposure, slowing malicious propagation, and improving incident response options for enterprises.

aonelakeuser outlines summer updates to OneLake security in Microsoft Fabric, including broader engine coverage (Eventhouse and Fabric Graph), a simplified column-level security UI, faster Secure tab performance, a redesigned SQL Analytics Endpoint sync model, and generally available OneLake security APIs.

Alex Pysanets announces the general availability of Commit Search in Azure DevOps, a new way to find commits by searching commit message text across projects and repositories, with filters for project, repo, author, and branch plus sorting by time or relevance.

GitHub walks through starting a session in the GitHub Copilot app, including writing a first prompt, adding project context from a local folder or GitHub repository, choosing an AI model, and using voice input to describe coding problems.

Allison announces an update to Dependabot malware alerts: GitHub Advisory Database now ingests malware advisories from the OpenSSF malicious-packages repository, expanding detection coverage across more ecosystems and surfacing matches as Dependabot alerts in your repos and orgs.

Visual Studio Code shows the different ways to split the integrated terminal, making it easier to work with multiple shells or tasks side-by-side while staying inside the editor.

Allison announces a new GitHub Actions protection that automatically holds certain workflow runs flagged as potentially malicious until a collaborator with write access reviews and approves them via an authenticated web session.

Sergey Menshykh explains how .NET agents can discover and load Agent Skills directly from a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server using the Microsoft Agent Framework, so teams can publish skills centrally and have agents pull them on demand without redeploying.

Allison announces updates to GitHub Copilot for JetBrains, including configurable OpenTelemetry export for agent workflows, tighter controls for model behavior (token limits, enabling/disabling built-in models), and support for MCP servers and custom agents in Claude agent flows, plus Copilot CLI and UX improvements.

Visual Studio Code shows how the new Migration feature in VS Code turns existing prompts into reusable skills, focusing on a faster way to organize and reuse prompt-driven workflows inside the editor.

Santhosh_Ravin1 explains how Microsoft Fabric Spark’s Native Execution Engine now accelerates CSV reads with a native, SIMD-optimized reader, improving common data engineering workloads without requiring code changes.

Allison announces a new dedicated policy for the GitHub Copilot app, letting enterprises and organizations control access independently from Copilot CLI. The update keeps existing guardrails in place by routing changes through isolated workspaces and pull requests, so reviews, checks, and audit history still apply.

Burke Holland shares a practical GitHub Copilot “harness” workflow for building features end-to-end: pick a Copilot surface, enable more autonomy safely, prototype and plan in the same session, implement with Autopilot, then iterate and run a Rubber Duck review to catch blind spots.

AmirJafari announces updates to Fabric data agents in Microsoft Foundry, focusing on simpler MCP-based connectivity, OneLake Catalog discovery, support for attaching multiple data agents to a single Foundry agent, and improved production troubleshooting via Foundry Observability traces and logs.

John Savill gives a very quick overview of Rayfin and Microsoft Fabric Apps, focusing on where they fit in the Fabric ecosystem and why they matter for analytics and data platform work.

John Savill gives a quick overview of Rayfin and Microsoft Fabric Apps, focusing on the problem they’re trying to solve, how the Fabric Apps data model works, and what app hosting looks like in practice, with a short demo and key takeaways.

Satya Nadella announces MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, a cybersecurity-focused model aimed at finding difficult vulnerabilities in large codebases, and describes how it pairs with MDASH to reduce cost while maintaining strong results. He also introduces Project Perception, an agentic security offering built around real-world signals and security workflows.

Allison announces that enterprise managed settings now apply to the GitHub Copilot app and Copilot cloud agent, letting enterprise owners enforce a single managed-settings.json policy across more Copilot clients, including controls for plugins, marketplaces, and approval-prompt bypass behavior.

Yuliia Kovalova and Jan Krivanek introduce the MSBuild Binlog Analyzer for VS Code, a preview extension that uses GitHub Copilot Chat plus an MCP server to explain build failures, pinpoint performance bottlenecks, compare builds, and spot regressions directly from MSBuild .binlog files.

mayurjain explains how the OpenAI Assistants API retirement on August 26, 2026 affects programmatic integrations with Microsoft Fabric Data Agents, and why Microsoft recommends moving to the Data Agent Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoint instead of rebuilding directly on OpenAI’s Responses API.

robece-msft introduces the fundamentals of event-driven architecture in Microsoft Fabric, focusing on Real-Time Hub and how Fabric’s event capabilities help workloads react to meaningful business signals in real time.

vladvino announces the public preview of the AI Gateway tier for Azure API Management, focused on publishing and governing AI models and MCP servers. The post explains the new portal experience, policy-card governance (rate limits, quotas, Content Safety, fallback), and OpenTelemetry token metrics to destinations like Application Insights.

sbaynes introduces MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, Microsoft’s compact cyber-focused model used inside MDASH to handle most security tasks at lower token cost, while reserving larger models for harder cases. The post also outlines Project Perception’s agentic security workflows and the safety, governance, and enterprise controls built into deployment.

Ram Shankar Siva Kumar announces Microsoft’s External Red Team Alliance (EXTRA), a global effort to expand AI red teaming beyond internal teams by funding academic research and building an external network of specialists to test frontier AI systems across languages, regions, and domains.

Christopher Harrison introduces the GitHub Copilot app and shows how it supports real-world development workflows with project-scoped agent sessions, Quick Chat for parallel threads, interactive canvases for visual iteration, and Agent Merge to help move pull requests through CI and review.

Kumar Kaushal demonstrates a transitional Azure networking pattern for phased migrations where an application is hard-coded to a legacy private IP. The lab uses Private Link Service Direct Connect plus a Private Endpoint and a site-to-site VPN so Azure-hosted tiers can keep calling the same on-premises address during the interim phase.

Lee Stott explains why the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is becoming the standard way AI agents connect to tools and data, then shows minimal runnable MCP server examples in Python and TypeScript plus practical guidance for VS Code hosting, security, and production operations.

John Edward explains how to build an AI-powered IT support agent on Azure, using Azure AI Foundry with Azure OpenAI Service and (optionally) Azure AI Search for RAG-based answers grounded in internal documentation, plus ideas for automating common help desk actions like ticket creation and password resets.

This week's ML roundup focuses on the practical path from research ideas to systems you can ship. Microsoft open-sourced ML Video Codec (MLVC) with code, weights, and tooling for real-time deployment on commodity NPUs, while Fabric and SQL updates show clearer patterns for streaming fresh signals into ML enrichment and feature updates. On the platform side, OneLake and Lakehouse improvements reduce friction around query iteration, cross-platform table access, and tighter inbound controls. We close with lessons on scaling large training runs across AMD and NVIDIA via Foundry Managed Compute and a look at Microsoft IQ as a governance-first way to feed agents the right context.

This week's DevOps roundup connects day-2 guardrails, agentic workflows, and stricter pull request gates. Azure Policy for Kubernetes moves validation closer to the API server with VAP and CEL, while GitHub and VS Code keep pushing Copilot agents earlier into issues, PR creation, and even mobile-first CI triage. On the reliability side, GitHub Code Quality and Dependabot's default cooldown add more predictable merge-time checks, and Azure deep dives on large-scale migrations and hybrid Logic Apps highlight rollout and rollback patterns that hold up under real traffic.

This week's Weekly AI Roundup is about AI features that are starting to look like real workflow infrastructure: more Copilot model choices (Claude Opus 5 and Gemini 3.6 Flash), more places to run coding agents, and clearer controls for approvals, auditability, and spend. Copilot's ticket-to-PR story got deeper with Linear GA, mobile-triggered agent fixes for failed CI checks, and new agent automation controls in GitHub Issues, while GitHub Code Quality reached GA with enforceable gates and Autofix in PRs. On the platform side, MCP moved toward a stateless spec and stronger governance patterns (including Azure API Management and OBO identity), and Microsoft pushed more of the "ship and operate" stack with Agent Framework releases, Foundry Toolboxes, and an observability agent for day-two operations.

Welcome to this week's GitHub Copilot roundup, where the story is less about a single assistant and more about a platform you can tune, govern, and measure. The model picker keeps expanding (Claude Opus 5 and Gemini 3.6 Flash), while cloud agents show up in more places like Linear, GitHub Mobile (for failed Actions checks), and GitHub Issues with new automation controls. On the operations side, Copilot adds clearer AI Credits visibility, cost center pools, and an impact dashboard, and GitHub Code Quality reaches GA with Copilot Autofix bringing fix suggestions directly into PR workflows.

This week in .NET, Microsoft Agent Framework hit a more practical stride with a batteries-included runtime (Harness) and Declarative Workflows 1.0 that moves multi-agent orchestration into YAML you can review and change without rewriting core code. On the web stack, .NET 11 Preview 6 focused on safer defaults and sharper APIs, including async validation for minimal APIs, automatic CSRF protection, and OpenAPI updates that help keep server and client contracts aligned. We also saw VS Code refine the in-editor agent experience and more hands-on guidance for building MCP servers in .NET, with sampling and logging patterns that improve repeatability and observability. Rounding things out, hybrid integration stayed in focus with a detailed walkthrough for running Azure Logic Apps Hybrid on a self-managed Kubernetes setup.

Welcome to this week's Weekly Azure Roundup, where the theme is tightening the path from prototype to production across governance, security, and operations. AKS governance takes a Kubernetes-native step forward with CEL and Validating Admission Policy support, while networking and protection updates add practical controls like IPv6 for VPN Gateway and custom DDoS policy tuning. On the platform side, Azure Functions runtime updates and a large-scale migration case study highlight what it takes to keep serverless estates current under live load, and the agent stack continues to fill in with Foundry design tooling, delegated auth, a released Agent Framework runtime, and GA observability in Azure Monitor. We also cover new AI model options, expanding HPC capacity, and data streaming and network controls across Azure SQL and Fabric, plus hybrid updates spanning Azure Local storage and Logic Apps Hybrid on self-managed Kubernetes.

This week's Security roundup tracks a clear shift toward platform-enforced guardrails for both AI-assisted development and cloud operations. GitHub and Azure shipped changes that make controls more explicit and easier to standardize, from stateless MCP support and model selection safeguards in Copilot to Kubernetes-native admission policy, DDoS tuning, and tighter data plane access rules. On the supply chain side, Dependabot's default cooldown and GitHub Code Quality's PR gating aim to reduce risky churn while catching issues earlier. Threat reporting also reinforces that defenders need coverage beyond email as Teams-based lures and vishing keep growing, while incident response becomes more packaged through new insurer-aligned options.

Authorised Territory demonstrates a .NET AI agent setup where an agent is allowed to rename a file inside a confined folder using the .NET Agent Framework harness, with a local Ollama-hosted LLM (gpt-oss) driving the agent’s decisions.

GitHub highlights an open-source project that turns World Cup 2026 match event data into interactive 3D “data portraits,” focusing on how the visualization is built and delivered in the browser.