I'm wondering if it's possible to utilize the agents we've created in the new Azure Foundry portal with Foundry Local. Has anyone successfully done this? If not, are there any workarounds using tools like LangChain or CrewAI that could help us out?
3 Answers
You can run the model on Foundry Local, but the agent runtime usually operates on a hosted service. This means you likely can't execute an agent built in Foundry locally in the same manner. A good alternative is to recreate the agent loop in your app and call a local model endpoint. Just remember, if your agent uses Foundry connectors, you'll need to replace or reimplement those.
I haven’t tried Foundry Local directly, but I can tell you that the issues with agents often come from the tool or runtime layer rather than just the models. If Foundry Local doesn’t offer the same capabilities as Foundry, you might need to create a custom agent loop using LangChain or CrewAI to connect to a local model. By the way, do your agents mainly use tools or do they depend on any specific Foundry connectors? You might find this overview of agent architectures helpful: [Agent Architecture Overview](https://www.agentixlabs.com/blog/)
Foundry Local plays nicely with the Microsoft Agent Framework! Check out this guide for more info: [Building with Microsoft Agent Framework](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/semantic-kernel/from-local-models-to-agent-workflows-building-a-deep-research-solution-with-microsoft-agent-framework-on-microsoft-foundry-local/)
That’s great to know! Do you think it works with the Rust SDK as well?
Our agents depend on the Fabric Data Agent connection, which I believe Foundry Portal accesses through MCP. In the future, we may be able to use the Data Agent MCP endpoint for local setups. Right now, though, it’s mostly for VS Code integration.