Azure AI Agent Service
Microsoft's fully managed agent service with an OpenAI Assistants-compatible REST API. Agent hierarchy is approximated via Connected Agents — a tool type that lets one agent delegate to another.
Overview
Azure AI Agent Service is part of Azure AI Foundry. It exposes an OpenAI Assistants-compatible REST API, meaning any tooling that works with the OpenAI Assistants API works with Azure AI Agents with minimal modification.
The key integration point for multi-agent teams is the Connected Agents tool type — a special tool that lets an agent invoke another agent. Envelope's reporting hierarchy maps to this: a manager agent receives specialist agents as Connected Agent tools and delegates to them during a run.
Concept mapping
| Envelope concept | Azure AI equivalent |
|---|---|
| Team | Agent + Connected Agents group |
| Agent | Azure AI Agent (Assistants-compatible) |
| Run | Thread + Run object |
| Install | Agent provisioning via REST |
| reportsToKey | Connected Agent tool type |
| requiredSecrets | Azure Key Vault / connection strings |
Auth consideration
Azure Entra ID authentication — Azure AI Agent Service uses Azure Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) for authentication — not a simple API key. The Envelope integration must handle OAuth token acquisition via a service principal or managed identity. This adds credential complexity compared to other platforms but is standard for Azure enterprise deployments.
Integration status
- [x] Research complete
- [x] Concept mapping confirmed
- [ ] Entra ID auth implementation
- [ ] Conformance testing
- [ ] General availability