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Agents powered by the GitHub Copilot harness in Microsoft Copilot Studio use publishing to move your agent from development into a live version that other users can access. Until you publish, your agent is only available in the preview pane.
Note
Features in this article are powered by the GitHub Copilot harness, which uses Copilot Credits for usage-based billing. Learn more about Copilot Credits in Overview of billing for agents powered by the GitHub Copilot harness.
Usage-based billing applies to using, building, testing, and evaluating agents. These actions might consume Copilot Credits.
What publishing means
Publishing makes your agent available to users through the channels you configure. It creates a live version of the current draft of your agent so people can interact with the agent outside the authoring experience.
Your draft can continue to change after a publish. Those changes stay in draft until you publish again, which lets you test updates before they become available to users.
Prerequisites
Before you publish, make sure that:
- Your agent has a name, description, and instructions.
- You saved the changes that you want to include in the published version.
- You tested the draft in the preview pane.
- Any knowledge, skills, workflow nodes, and triggers that you want users to access are already configured in the draft.
- You know which channels you plan to use.
Publish workflow overview
Publishing typically follows this flow:
- Build your agent by configuring its identity, instructions, knowledge, tools, skills, and other capabilities.
- Preview/Test the draft to verify responses, grounding, tool use, and overall behavior.
- Publish the draft to create a live version.
- Distribute the published agent by connecting channels and sharing it where you want users to find it.
Before the publish starts, Copilot Studio checks whether the draft is ready. At minimum, your agent must have a name, description, and instructions.
Publish states
During the publish lifecycle, you see different status indicators that help you understand whether the live version is ready.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not yet published | The agent exists only as a draft. Users can't access it outside the preview and test pane. |
| Publishing in progress | Copilot Studio is creating the live version. Wait for publishing to finish before you distribute the agent. |
| Published / Live | The latest published version is available for users through connected channels. |
| Publish failed | The publish didn't complete successfully. Review the failure details, fix the issue, and retry publishing. |
Versioning
Each time you publish, Copilot Studio creates a new version of your agent. The first publish creates the initial live version, and each later publish increments the version so you can distinguish the current live release from newer draft changes.
Versioning helps you understand when a user-facing update was created. If you change the draft after publishing, those edits don't affect the live version until you publish again.
What gets published
A publish operation captures the current draft configuration of your agent, including:
- Name
- Description
- Instructions
- Capabilities
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Workflow nodes
- Triggers
If you update any of these items in the draft, publish again to make the changes live.
Channels and distribution
Publishing creates the live version of your agent, but users still need a place to access it. After publishing, connect your agent to the channels where you want it to appear, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Teams, or websites.
Different channels can have different setup requirements and availability. Learn more in Available channels for agents.