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CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

This is the Microsoft 365 Agents SDK for JavaScript/TypeScript (formerly known as BotFramework SDK v5). It provides a comprehensive framework for building enterprise-grade conversational agents that work across M365, Teams, Copilot Studio, Webchat, and other platforms.

The repository is a monorepo using npm workspaces with multiple interconnected packages.

Repository Structure

Core Packages (in packages/)

  • agents-activity: Activity protocol types, validators, and schema definitions using Zod. Replaces botframework-schema.
  • agents-hosting: Core hosting components including ActivityHandler, TurnContext, CloudAdapter, authentication, and state management. Replaces botbuilder.
  • agents-hosting-express: Express.js integration for hosting agents.
  • agents-hosting-fastify: Fastify integration for hosting agents.
  • agents-hosting-dialogs: Dialog system for building conversational flows. Replaces botbuilder-dialogs.
  • agents-hosting-extensions-msteams: Teams-specific features (TaskModules, Messaging Extensions).
  • agents-hosting-extensions-teams: Deprecated legacy Teams extension retained for backward compatibility.
  • agents-hosting-storage-blob: Azure Blob Storage adapter. Replaces botbuilder-azure.
  • agents-hosting-storage-cosmos: CosmosDB storage adapter. Replaces botbuilder-azure.
  • agents-copilotstudio-client: Direct-to-Engine client for interacting with Copilot Studio agents.

Test Agents (in test-agents/)

Sample agents used for internal testing ("samples"). For learning examples, refer to https://github.com/Microsoft/Agents.

Common Development Commands

Building

# Build all packages using TypeScript project references
npm run build

# Clean dist directories and rebuild
npm run build:clean

# Build sample test agents
npm run build:samples

# Build browser bundles (runs automatically after build)
npm run build:browser

Build Process: Uses TypeScript project references defined in tsconfig.build.json. Each package builds independently but respects dependencies through references.

Testing

# Run all tests using Node's built-in test runner
npm test

# Run a single test file
node --test --import tsx packages/agents-activity/test/exceptionHelper.test.ts

# Run tests for a specific package
node --test --import tsx 'packages/agents-activity/test/**/*.test.ts'

Test Framework: Uses Node.js built-in node:test module with tsx for TypeScript support. Test files follow the pattern **/*.test.ts and use describe/it syntax.

Linting

# Run eslint on all files
npm run lint

# Lint a specific file
npx eslint packages/agents-activity/src/index.ts

Linting: Uses neostandard ESLint configuration with TypeScript support.

Documentation

# Generate API documentation using TypeDoc
npm run docs

Other Commands

# Check repository structure, package metadata, documentation, and runtime configuration
npm run repo:doctor

# Check API compatibility
npm run compat

# Launch agents playground (interactive testing tool)
npm run play

Run npm run repo:doctor after structural, package, documentation, build-reference, dependency, API-baseline, test-agent, Docker, or runtime-configuration changes. Every diagnostic includes a rule ID and a concrete fix instruction.

Do not use implicit npm lifecycle wrappers such as prebuild, postbuild, pretest, or posttest. npm --ignore-scripts skips these hooks, so required work must be explicit. Install-time hooks (preinstall, install, postinstall, and prepare) are prohibited. Put dependent work directly in the explicit command, for example npm run build && node ....

Key Architecture Concepts

Package Dependencies

The package dependency hierarchy (simplified):

  • agents-activity (base layer - no internal dependencies)
  • agents-hosting (depends on agents-activity)
  • agents-hosting-express (depends on agents-hosting)
  • agents-hosting-dialogs (depends on agents-hosting)
  • Storage and extension packages (depend on agents-hosting)

Core Abstractions

Activity Protocol: All communication uses the Activity schema defined in agents-activity. Activities are validated using Zod schemas and can be created with Activity.fromObject().

TurnContext: Represents a single turn of conversation. Provides access to the activity, state, and methods to send responses. Created by the adapter for each incoming activity.

ActivityHandler: Base class for handling different activity types (message, conversationUpdate, etc.). Provides event-based hooks like onMessage, onConversationUpdate.

AgentApplication: Modern application-style API for building agents. Provides a higher-level abstraction over ActivityHandler with built-in state management, routing, and AI integration capabilities.

CloudAdapter: Processes incoming HTTP requests, authenticates them, and creates TurnContext. Handles the communication with channels.

Storage: Abstraction for persisting state (conversation, user, private). Implementations exist for Memory, Blob, and Cosmos.

Teams Extension (Teams SDK Migration)

The agents-hosting-extensions-msteams package aligns with the Teams SDK-based architecture used in .NET. The legacy agents-hosting-extensions-teams package remains in the workspace for backward compatibility, but is deprecated and should not be used for new development.

  • Teams SDK dependency: Uses @microsoft/teams.api (2.0.14) for Teams models and client operations.
  • Legacy API isolation: TeamsConnectorClient, TeamsActivityHandler, TeamsInfo, and the local Teams-specific model wrappers remain available only from the deprecated agents-hosting-extensions-teams package.
  • Shared Teams client setup: Teams client setup/retrieval for the new package is implemented in packages/agents-hosting-extensions-msteams/src/teamsApiClientExtensions.ts.
  • Turn setup requirements:
    • TeamsAgentExtension registers a beforeTurn handler that configures the Teams client for AgentApplication scenarios.
    • Use TeamsAgentExtension.getTeamsClient(context) for Teams SDK client access.
  • Error handling:
    • Missing client access throws TeamsApiClientNotAvailable.
    • Teams client setup prerequisites throw TeamsApiClientSetupFailed (for easier misconfiguration diagnosis).
  • Parsing simplification:
    • Teams channel data parsing was simplified to root-object validation/pass-through (activity-extensions/teamsChannelData.ts).
    • Messaging extension query parsing remains validated via a Zod schema (messageExtensions/messagingExtensionQuery.ts).

Authentication

Authentication configuration is loaded from environment variables using loadAuthConfigFromEnv(). The SDK supports:

  • JWT authentication with JWKS validation
  • Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) authentication
  • Bot Framework authentication
  • Copilot Studio authentication (for agents-copilotstudio-client)

Use authorizeJWT() middleware for Express applications to validate incoming requests.

Module System

Important: This project uses ES6 modules ("type": "module" in package.json). All imports must use explicit file extensions in the built output, and the code targets Node.js 20+.

TypeScript Configuration

  • Target: ES2019 with ES2022 lib
  • Module: node16 (ESM)
  • Strict mode: Enabled
  • Project References: Used for incremental builds
  • Source Maps: Generated for debugging

Each package has its own tsconfig.json that extends the root configuration.

Testing Guidelines

  • Use Node's built-in node:test module (import from node:test)
  • Use assert from the standard library
  • Place tests in test/ directory within each package
  • Name test files with .test.ts suffix
  • Tests run with tsx for TypeScript support
  • Do not leave a TypeScript cast (as or angle-bracket assertion) in a test callback's final executable statement. The VS Code node:test extension uses a loose parser for TypeScript; assign the cast result to a typed local earlier in the callback instead.

Common Patterns

Creating an Agent with ActivityHandler

import { ActivityHandler, TurnContext } from '@microsoft/agents-hosting'

export class MyBot extends ActivityHandler {
  constructor() {
    super()
    this.onMessage(async (context: TurnContext, next) => {
      await context.sendActivity(`You said: ${context.activity.text}`)
      await next()
    })
  }
}

Creating an Agent with AgentApplication

import { AgentApplication, TurnContext, TurnState } from '@microsoft/agents-hosting'

const app = new AgentApplication<TurnState>({ storage: new MemoryStorage() })
app.onActivity('message', async (context: TurnContext, state: TurnState) => {
  const counter = state.getValue('conversation.counter') || 0
  await context.sendActivity(`[${counter}] You said: ${context.activity.text}`)
  state.setValue('conversation.counter', counter + 1)
})

Using Copilot Studio Client

The client requires a JWT token and ConnectionSettings (environment ID + agent schema name, or direct connect URL). See packages/agents-copilotstudio-client/README.md for detailed setup including Azure app registration requirements.

Error Handling Pattern

Across all packages in this repo, thrown errors must use ExceptionHelper.generateException() with a predefined entry from an Errors constant — never use throw new Error(...) or throw new TypeError(...) directly.

// Import pattern
import { ExceptionHelper } from '@microsoft/agents-activity'
import { Errors } from '../errorHelper'  // adjust relative path per package

// Usage
throw ExceptionHelper.generateException(Error, Errors.SomeErrorKey)
throw ExceptionHelper.generateException(TypeError, Errors.SomeErrorKey)

// With template substitution (description uses {key} placeholders)
throw ExceptionHelper.generateException(Error, Errors.SomeErrorKey, undefined, { key: value })

// With inner exception
throw ExceptionHelper.generateException(Error, Errors.SomeErrorKey, originalError)

Each package keeps its error definitions in a local errorHelper.ts (e.g. packages/agents-hosting/src/errorHelper.ts) as AgentErrorDefinition entries with a unique numeric code, a description, and an optional helplink. When adding new errors, continue the numeric sequence in the appropriate range for the subsystem. Code reviews should flag any raw throw new Error that bypasses this pattern.

Git Workflow

  • Main branch: main
  • Feature branches: Typically users/<alias>/<feature-name>
  • Release branches: release/*
  • CI runs on PRs to main and release/* branches

CI/CD

The CI pipeline (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs:

  1. npm ci (clean install)
  2. npm run repo:doctor
  3. npm run lint
  4. npm run lint:deps:ci
  5. npm run build
  6. npm test
  7. npm run compat
  8. npm run build:samples
  9. node scripts/set-version.mjs (version management)

Node Version

Requires Node.js 20+. The repo uses Node 24 features like --env-file flag for loading .env files without the dotenv package.

Environment Variables

Test agents and samples load configuration from .env files using Node's --env-file flag. Common variables include authentication settings (app ID, password, tenant ID) and service endpoints.

Package Publishing

Packages are published to npm under the @microsoft scope. Nightly builds are available with the @next tag.