How to Create an Agent in Copilot Studio: Build, Test and Publish (New UI)

To create an agent in Copilot Studio, select the Agent tile on Home, give it a name and instructions, add knowledge, and select Save. Test it on the Preview tab, then select Publish and add a channel.

I just did exactly that in the new Copilot Studio experience. The result is an SPGuides IT Help Desk agent that answers Microsoft 365 questions from Microsoft Support articles, and it now runs in Teams and Microsoft Copilot.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create an agent in Copilot Studio with the updated UI: instructions, model, knowledge, testing, publishing to a channel, editing and republishing, plus the errors I hit along the way.

Here are the exact instructions I pasted into my agent:

You are the SPGuides IT Help Desk agent. You help SPGuides employees fix everyday Microsoft 365 problems: Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, passwords and MFA.
Answer in short numbered steps that a non-technical person can follow.
Use the Microsoft Support knowledge source first and mention the article you used.
Only answer IT questions. For HR, payroll or legal questions, say politely that you can't help with that.
If the problem needs an admin (license, new account, locked mailbox), tell the user to email helpdesk@spguides.com.

Those five lines give the agent its job, its answer style, its knowledge source, what’s out of scope and when to hand off to a person.

What You Need Before You Start

Check these three things first. I learned the second one the hard way:

• A work account that can sign in to Copilot Studio at copilotstudio.microsoft.com.
• An environment with Copilot Credits. The new agent experience uses usage-based billing, so building, testing and evaluating can consume credits. My default environment had none, so I switched to my Live Training environment with Switch environment at the bottom left.
• A knowledge source. A public website URL works for a first agent; SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Dataverse are also available.

Not sure this is the right tool? My comparison of Microsoft 365 Copilot vs Copilot Studio helps, and every related guide is in the Copilot Studio tutorials hub.

Step 1: Open Copilot Studio and Pick the Agent Tile

Sign in to Copilot Studio. The left navigation now shows Home, Agents, Workflows and Apps (Preview), and Home carries a small “Uses Copilot Credits” chip.

On Home, select the Agent tile tagged GitHub Copilot (“Create an agent to take actions and answer questions.”). Agents > New agent does the same thing:

The tile opens the designer right away, with the name field showing Untitled Agent. Across the top you get the Draft badge, the Build, Preview, Evaluate and Monitor tabs, and Save, Review and Publish:

This isn’t the lighter Agent Builder in Microsoft 365 Copilot. That’s a separate tool with its own simpler designer.

Step 2: Name the Agent and Write the Instructions

Type over Untitled Agent. I used SPGuides IT Help Desk. Pick the name before your first save, because the last name you enter then becomes the schema name, and it’s read-only afterward.

Agent settings also holds the primary language and the solution, if you need to change them.

Next, paste the instructions. The placeholder asks you to describe the goal, what’s in and out of scope, the tone, when to use knowledge or take action, and when to stop or ask for input.

Here’s my agent with its name and the five-line instructions from the snippet above:

For more on writing these and adding starter prompts, see how I configure agent instructions and conversation starters.

Step 3: Choose the Model and Review the Tools

The right-side panel holds everything else: Model, Channels, Skills, Tools, Knowledge, Connected agents and Memory (Preview). Look at the defaults before you go further:

Work IQ is added under Tools by default, Knowledge starts with a “Search all websites” chip, and Memory is off.

Select Model to see the options. The menu groups them by power: GPT 6 Astra at the top, then Claude Opus 5.5, GPT 6.1 Sol and GPT 6 Sol, then lighter models such as Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5:

I kept the default, Claude Opus 5.5. My guide on choosing the right AI model in Copilot Studio explains when a smaller model is enough.

Step 4: Add Knowledge to the Agent

Select + next to Knowledge. The Add knowledge dialog lists Public websites, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Dataverse, plus an area to upload files:

I picked Public websites. Order matters here: turn the “Search all websites” toggle off first, then paste the link and select Add. Switching the toggle after adding a link cleared my link, twice.

I added https://support.microsoft.com/en-us, named it Microsoft Support articles, and selected Add to agent:

The footer notes that this uses WebIQ, which may send data outside your organization’s compliance boundary. Check that with your admin before you point an agent at sensitive questions.

All the website options are in my guide to add a public website as a knowledge source. For internal data, try a SharePoint list as knowledge in Copilot Studio.

Step 5: Save the Agent and Check Review

Select the Save icon in the toolbar. My first save took about 30-40 seconds; then “Your agent has been saved.” appeared and the URL switched from agents/new to the agent’s ID.

Now select Review. Mine showed a badge of 2, both warnings rather than errors:

“No evaluation run” points to the Evaluate tab. “No channel configured” means nobody can use the agent yet, which Step 7 fixes.

Step 6: Test the Agent in the Preview Tab

Open the Preview tab. The header shows the credits used, plus New chat, History and Debug mode. My agent opened with “Hello! I’m SPGuides IT Help Desk. How can I help you today?”

I started with a normal IT question, “How do I turn on Out of Office in Outlook on the web?” While it worked, the agent showed Used tool: web_search:

It answered in numbered steps (Settings > Accounts > Automatic replies, turn them on, set the time period, Save) and ended with the helpdesk email line. The citation chip names the Microsoft Support article it used:

That first question took the counter from 0 to 9.35 credits.

Then I tested the scope with an HR question, “How many vacation days do I get this year?” The agent declined politely, just as the instructions say:

After two questions the counter read 11.54 credits, so leave room in your budget for testing.

Step 7: Publish the Agent and Add a Channel

Select Publish. The dialog warns that without a channel, triggers run the agent automatically, so select Add channel:

The list shows Teams + Microsoft 365, App and Demo website. Demo website was grayed out with my authentication settings, so I picked Teams + Microsoft 365:

Under Availability, choose Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Teams, or Microsoft Teams only. This setting can’t be changed after publishing, so decide now:

Under About info, fill in the Short description (up to 80 characters) and, if you like, the Long description (up to 3,400). Mine reads “Fixes everyday Microsoft 365 problems for SPGuides employees.” Then select Add channel:

Back in the dialog, Teams + Microsoft 365 is listed. Select Publish agent:

Publishing took about 40 seconds. Then “Your agent published successfully” appeared with a View in Teams + Microsoft 365 button, and the Draft badge turned into Published:

Want it on a web page instead? Follow my steps to publish an agent to a live or demo website. If you also need the agent in a Teams group chat, a Teams channel or on a SharePoint site, I cover those in how to publish a Copilot Studio agent to Teams and SharePoint.

How Do I Edit and Republish an Agent in Copilot Studio?

Select Agents in the left navigation and open your agent. You land on the Build tab, where you change the instructions, model, knowledge or tools.

Save, test again in Preview with a New chat, and select Publish. The Publish your changes dialog appears, and the new version replaces the old one in every channel.

If publishing fails, select Retry; your admin’s data policies can also block a channel. Small edits, like changing the agent welcome message, follow the same save-and-republish rhythm.

Other Ways to Build an Agent in Copilot Studio

Home also lists Other ways to build:

• Agent (Standard): “Create an agent with predefined rules and flows,” built with the classic standard orchestration.
• Agent flows (Standard): automations your agents can call, like an agent flow built in the designer.
• Customer Assist Agent: a starting point for customer conversations.

Important: the Agent tile builds on the GitHub Copilot harness, while Agent (Standard) uses the classic standard harness. You can’t move an agent between them, so choose before you build.

For agents that act on their own, see create autonomous agents in Copilot Studio. For teams of agents, read how to create multi agent setups.

Errors and Fixes When You Create an Agent

• EnforcementUsageCredits (“You need credits to continue… This environment is out of credits”): switch to an environment with Copilot Credits, or ask your admin to add credits.
• The website link disappears: turn off “Search all websites” before you add the link, not after.
• Demo website is grayed out: it depends on your authentication settings; my fix for the Copilot Studio demo website authentication error walks through it.
• The agent offers to read email, calendars or files: that’s the default Work IQ tool. Remove it if the agent shouldn’t touch users’ Microsoft 365 data.
• Old answers after you change instructions: a test chat from the unsaved agent carried over for me. Select New chat after every change.

If you want to keep extending your help desk agent, I’d go to these next:

• Create Custom Topic in Microsoft Copilot Studio [2 Easy Methods]
• Create SharePoint List Item Using Copilot Studio [Step By Step]
• Build and Deploy a Smart HR Assistant Bot Using Copilot Studio [Step-by-Step]
• How to Collect User Feedback in Copilot Studio Agents

Frequently Asked Questions