🇫🇷 Version française

Duration	Level	Prerequisites
15 min	Intermediate (optional)	Lab 09 complete (hello-world end-to-end working)

Overview

This lab is optional. The hello-world walkthrough is already complete after Lab 09. Use this lab when you want to see retrieval-augmented generation in action without any new infrastructure or auth setup. The same author sub-agent that wrote the topic in Lab 07 can attach a knowledge source from a public URL. After re-pushing and republishing, the agent grounds its answers in that source — visible in the Test pane’s activity map as a generative-answers node firing against your knowledge source.

Learning objectives

• Attach a public Microsoft Learn URL as a knowledge source via @copilot-studio:copilot-studio-author.
• Re-push and republish the agent so the new knowledge source is live.
• Open the Test pane activity map and identify the generative-answers node fired against your knowledge source.

Exercise 10.1 — Add the knowledge source

1. In your copilot session, run:

    @copilot-studio:copilot-studio-author Add a knowledge source pointing to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot-studio/ named "Copilot Studio Docs"
   

2. The sub-agent writes a new file at:

    HelloWorldAgent/knowledge/CopilotStudioDocs.knowledge.mcs.yml
   

3. Open the file in the editor and confirm it references the public Microsoft Learn URL you provided.

Exercise 10.2 — Push and republish

1. Push the change to the cloud:

    @copilot-studio:copilot-studio-manage push
   

2. Switch to the Copilot Studio portal, open the HelloWorldAgent edit view, and click Publish again. Wait for the success toast.

[!IMPORTANT] The republish step is required. The knowledge source is only attached to the published version of the agent — without republishing, the Test pane runs against the previous version and your new knowledge source has no effect.

Exercise 10.3 — Test generative answers in the Test pane

1. In the portal, open the Test pane.

2. Type a question that the new knowledge source can answer:

    What is a topic in Copilot Studio?
   

3. The agent now replies with content grounded in the public Microsoft Learn docs instead of replying from training data alone.

Exercise 10.4 — Inspect the activity map

1. In the Test pane, open the three-dot menu and pick Show activity map when testing.
2. Re-send the question.
3. The activity map shows a Generative answers node firing against your Copilot Studio Docs knowledge source. That is the visible confirmation that retrieval-augmented generation is wired up correctly.

Verification Checkpoint

Before proceeding, verify:

• HelloWorldAgent/knowledge/CopilotStudioDocs.knowledge.mcs.yml exists in your workspace and references the public Microsoft Learn URL.
• The portal Publish button reported a success toast after the second push.
• The Test pane returns a content-grounded answer to “What is a topic in Copilot Studio?”.
• The activity map shows a Generative answers node firing against the Copilot Studio Docs knowledge source.

Next Steps

A natural progression beyond this lab is to add an action that calls an MCP server or a Power Automate flow:

@copilot-studio:copilot-studio-author Add an action ...

That step introduces external API integration and is intentionally out of scope for this workshop. See References for pointers to the Microsoft sample repositories that walk through MCP-server actions end to end.