Demystifying Workflows with Microsoft Agent Framework

Demystifying Workflows with Microsoft Agent Framework is about taking back control of orchestration by understanding and using the low-level building blocks, not just the high-level patterns. At the core of this session is custom orchestration built from executors and edges: type-safe processing nodes connected in a directed graph that explicitly controls how data and decisions flow through our system. High-level patterns like sequential, concurrent, group chat, handoffs, and magnetic orchestration are presented as composable shortcuts on top of this graph, not as the only way to design workflows. By the end, we'll see that we are not forced to choose between “magic” high-level orchestration and brittle custom flows. Instead, we'll learn how to use high-level patterns for speed, and drop down to executors and edges when we need custom routing, domain-specific logic, or hybrid workflows that mix sequential, concurrent, group chat, and handoff behaviors in one coherent system. ⌚ Chapters: 00:00 Countdown 03:15 Welcome to On .NET Live 03:55 Intro Daniel Costea 05:20 On today's stream 06:14 Agentic Entity Extractor Use Case 08:21 Ontologies 10:08 Mermaid Diagram 11:14 Solo Agent Design 11:40 What is an agent 12:45 Demo 1 - Solo Agent 18:04 Key Takeaways 18:40 Orchestration Patterns 21:46 Sequential Patterns 24:52 Demo 2 - Sequential Agents 28:47 technical difficulties 30:37 More on Daniel's book - Building AI Agents in .NET 34:55 Q&A 39:47 Workflow Building Blocks 41:01 Custom Workflow 43:10 Technical difficulties - talk amongst yourselves 😉 45:52 Demo 3 - Custom Workflow 50:53 Tech difficulties - hardware overload 52:41 Keytakeaways 54:15 A look at the code 59:35 Resources + Q&A 01:03:54 Wrap 🔗 Links: Demo Repo: https://github.com/dcostea/Apex.AgenticEntityExtractor Book: https://www.manning.com/books/building-ai-agents-in-dotnet Book Repo: https://github.com/dcostea/Apex.AgentFrameworkBook 🎙️ Featuring: Daniel Costea, Maira Wenzel, Katie Savage and Cam Soper