Agent Builder package to Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit project

ab-to-atk is a command-line tool that converts an Agent Builder agent package into a Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit project. It reads the agent manifest from the package and generates a project with the same capabilities, but in a format that can be opened and edited in VS Code using the toolkit extension. Same agent, more possibilities.

Agent Builder is the fastest and easiest way to create an agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Using it's user-friendly interface, you can create an agent in minutes, just write your agent instructions and connect it to your Microsoft 365 data. Simple.

When you build an agent using Agent Builder, the user interface is building up an agent package behind the scenes. This package contains a file called the agent manifest. The manifest is a document that tells Microsoft 365 Copilot what capabilities your agent has. You never see this file, but it is the most important part of your agent. The manifest is what makes your agent work.

You can inspect this file by exporting your agent package by using the Download as ZIP function. Extract the contents of your ZIP and you'll find the declarativeAgent_0.json file. This is the agent manifest.

This is where things get interesting. The manifest is a JSON document that adheres to a specific schema. The schema provides a blueprint for functionality that be used by an agent. When you build an agent using Agent Builder, the capabilites your select are reflected in the manifest, however the user interface does not expose all the functionality that is available in the schema.

This is where Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit comes in. The toolkit is a VS Code extension that allows you to build agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot. The toolkit exposes the full schema and allows you to build agents with more advanced functionality than what is available in Agent Builder. Such as (as of 31st July 2026):

• Actions — connect your agent to REST APIs (via OpenAPI), Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, or Office add-ins so it can do things, not just answer questions. Includes authentication, typed parameters, user confirmation prompts, Adaptive Card responses, and per-response model instructions.
• Write-enabled capabilities — EmailActions (triage, supervised send, inbox rules, auto-reply, folder management) and MeetingActions (schedule events, create time-finding polls, surface time insights).
• Additional knowledge sources — Dataverse tables and ScenarioModels (task-specific models).
• Connected agents (worker_agents) — delegate work to other declarative agents.
• Editorial answers — predefined question/answer pairs matched by semantic similarity, for consistent responses to common questions.
• A disclaimer shown to the user at the start of every conversation.
• User overrides — toggle controls that let end users enable or disable specific capabilities per session.
• Finer-grained knowledge scoping — such as restricting Email to specific folders or a shared mailbox, or refining Copilot connector results with Keyword Query Language (KQL) queries (additional_search_terms).

Usage

npx ab-to-atk -f "<path>"

[!IMPORTANT] Requires node ≥ 20

Options

Options:
  -f, --file-path <path>  Agent Builder .zip export (required)
  -o, --output <dir>      Output project directory (default: ./<agent-slug>/)
  -y, --yes               Skip confirmation
  -d, --debug             Print full error stack traces on failure
  --no-color              Disable colour (also honours NO_COLOR)
  --force                 Overwrite a non-empty output dir
  --no-telemetry          Opt out of anonymous telemetry
  -V, --version           Tool version + resolved template version
  -h, --help              Usage

License

MIT