Dispatches · from the field
Between missions.
Between missions: notes, analysis and reference pieces. Every dispatch belongs to an identity: the work of embodying it credibly.
AI generatedThe seat stays, the meter is new
Copilot Cowork has been generally available since 16 June 2026 and bills per task in Copilot Credits, at one cent per credit on pay-as-you-go. That gives the workplace a variable cost item. What the price of a task contains, which controls exist, and the two points to settle before you switch it on.
AI generatedAgents Build It. You Ship It.
An agentic SDLC with Microsoft Foundry and GitHub Copilot. Agents write the code, agents review it, and what ships is an agent itself. Why instructions are a request and a gate is a decision, which Foundry building blocks are GA and which are preview, and where the gaps are.
AI generatedYour model has an expiry date, your agent does not
Who sets the deadlines in Foundry and GitHub Copilot, how long they are and what happens to your deployment on the day. With the upgrade policy as the decisive line, two contradictions on Microsoft Learn about the lifespan of GA models, and the question of who ever sees the deprecation notice.
AI generatedBuilding it is not distributing it
Five ways to hand a Copilot Studio or Agent Builder agent to people, with the roles, licences and admin approvals each of them requires. Plus the asymmetry between editing and using, the places where an admin stops distribution, and a licensing contradiction that depends on the authoring surface.
AI generatedAn agent takes the inventory now. Not the decision.
Agentic Center of Enablement puts three governance agents into the Power Platform admin center and is on by default once the tenant holds one managed environment. Inventory is solved, so the bottleneck moves to approval. Plus three holes in the cost controls and two dates that slip past.
AI generatedYour weakest client sets your policy
In nine weeks GitHub turned central control of Copilot from a single switch into a rulebook spanning the CLI, VS Code, JetBrains, the app and the cloud agent. The policy now lives as a versioned file in a repository. It only works as far as your clients read it, and they catch up weeks apart.
AI generatedEurope costs nine per cent
Since 1 September 2026 data residency in Microsoft Foundry carries a price tag: EU Data Zone at plus nine per cent over Global, regional outside the US at plus seven to sixteen, the new APAC zone at plus twenty. The premium is the harmless part. The hard part is the exclusion list in the model catalogue and the confusion between a data zone and the EU Data Boundary.
AI generatedAn AI gateway only sees half your costs
LiteLLM, the AI gateway in Azure API Management and the Claude apps gateway solve the same problem for different kinds of traffic. Anything running on API keys can be brought under control. Anything billed per seat stays outside. And that is often the larger half of the invoice.
AI generatedWhat an agent task really costs
With the GitHub Copilot harness, the Microsoft 365 Copilot licence buys only the right to build, no longer the right to operate. What feeds into Copilot Credits, when counting starts, and how to reach a defensible number before rollout.
AI generatedSovereignty is decided per model, not per platform
Whether a model is processed in Europe is not a property of the platform. It is three separate questions: contract, processing location, operator access. Why the newest model reaches the EU data zone last by design, what sovereignty has cost extra since 1 September, and which default has been on for new tenants since March.
AI generatedArticle 50 applies. To your agent too.
The digital omnibus postponed the high-risk obligations to December 2027. Not the transparency obligations. Since 2 August 2026 it must be apparent that people are talking to AI. An implementation checklist, not legal advice.
AI generatedOne SKILL.md, three platforms
Skills are Markdown with YAML front matter. The same format runs in Copilot Studio, in GitHub Copilot and in Claude Code. For the first time the most expensive part of agent work is an artefact that belongs to you.
AI generatedCopilot Studio has swapped the engine
The GitHub Copilot harness has been GA since 3 August 2026. Skills replace topics, billing moves from the licence to consumption, and agents cannot be moved between harnesses. What that means for existing solutions.
AI generatedFrom topic tree to skill
Agents cannot be moved between harnesses. Two years of work invested in topics means a rebuild. A migration guide with three buckets, a mapping table and the sequence that actually works.
AI generatedWork IQ, the layer underneath
The most common reason an agent convinces in testing and disappoints in daily use is missing context. Work IQ is meant to close that gap. What the layer does, where GA and preview labels contradict each other, and what it costs.
AI generatedTwo doors, one runtime
Copilot Studio or Microsoft Foundry is the wrong question. They are two entrances to the same platform, and the choice has less to do with technology than with who maintains the agent in two years.
AI generatedAgents get ID badges, but no wallet
Entra Agent ID has been GA since April, Agent 365 since May. Both solve the identity question for agents. What they do not solve: the credentials an agent carries, and the legacy estate that gets no badges.
AI generatedInventory before governance
A policy without an inventory governs only the agents yet to be built. Where you actually look, which fields a row needs, and the four questions where the fourth is met with silence.
AI generatedComputer use, honestly assessed
GA since May 2026. Not supported: Electron, Java, Unity, Citrix and virtualised environments. Which makes computer use weakest precisely where you would need it most.
AI generatedSemantic Kernel and AutoGen are now one
The Microsoft Agent Framework brings both together, stable for Python and .NET. What that means for C# projects, why middleware is the underrated building block, and why there is deliberately no code sample here.
AI generatedWhy Agentin
The name has two readings and both are intended. What sits behind the five identities, why this site is built the way it is, and what will appear here from now on.