Prepare your development environment

Set up your development environment with Foundry DevPack, language runtimes, and Git.

Prepare your development environment to build with Microsoft Foundry. You need a supported programming language, Git, and the Foundry developer tools that fit your workflow.

Foundry DevPack is the recommended way to install the developer tools in one command. You can also install each tool separately.

This article covers general prerequisites and developer tools. It doesn’t cover scenario-specific SDK packages or authentication code. When your environment is ready, continue to the quickstart.

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don’t have one, create a free Azure account, which includes a free trial subscription.
• Access to the Foundry resource or project that you plan to use. For setup guidance, see Minimum role assignments to get started.

Install Foundry DevPack

Foundry DevPack installs the Foundry developer tools for your terminal, editor, and coding agent. Select your operating system.

Windows

    winget install Microsoft.FoundryDevPack

DevPack installs its core tools and adds host extensions only when their apps are present:

Tool	What you can do
azd and azd ai	Scaffold, deploy, evaluate, and automate from the terminal.
Microsoft Foundry Skill	Give coding agents reusable guidance for Foundry workflows.
Microsoft Foundry Toolkit for Visual Studio Code	Installed only when Visual Studio Code is present. Build, test, evaluate, and deploy from the editor.
Foundry Canvas (preview)	Installed only when GitHub Copilot App is present. Design and deploy hosted agents from a guided canvas.

DevPack doesn’t install Visual Studio Code or GitHub Copilot App.

Continue with the following sections to set up your programming language and install Git.

Work with a programming language

Use the language that your application requires. Select a tab to install its runtime or Visual Studio Code extension.

Python

Install Python 3.10 or later. Python 3.10 is the minimum supported version. Create a virtual environment for your project instead of installing packages globally.

Windows

py -3 -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

macOS and Linux

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

For editor support, install the Python extension for Visual Studio Code.

C#

Install the latest Long-Term Support version of the .NET SDK. For editor support, install C# Dev Kit for Visual Studio Code.

JavaScript/TypeScript

Install Node.js. Version 20 or later is recommended.

Java

Install JDK 17 or later. The Microsoft Build of OpenJDK is a free Long-Term Support distribution. For editor support, install the Visual Studio Code Extension Pack for Java.

Install Git

To clone Foundry SDK samples, you need Git. If you don’t have Git installed, download and install it from the Git website.

Install developer tools separately

If you don’t use Foundry DevPack, select a tab to install only the tooling that you need.

azd and azd ai

1. Install the Azure Developer CLI.

2. Install the Foundry extensions:

   azd ext install microsoft.foundry
   

To install individual extensions instead of the full bundle, see Install the Azure Developer CLI Foundry extensions.

For direct, granular management of individual Azure resources, use the Azure CLI (az). See Azure Developer CLI vs Azure CLI.

Microsoft Foundry Skill

Install the Microsoft Foundry Skill in your coding agent. The installation steps vary by coding-agent host.

Microsoft Foundry Toolkit

If you use Visual Studio Code, install Microsoft Foundry Toolkit.

Foundry Canvas

If you use GitHub Copilot App, install Foundry Canvas to design and deploy hosted agents from a guided canvas.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Resolution
Command not found after installation	Close and reopen your terminal. If you use Visual Studio Code, restart it so that PATH changes take effect.
Python isn’t found	Use python3 instead of python on macOS or Linux, or install Python 3.10 or later.
Permission denied during Python package installation	On macOS or Linux, don’t use sudo pip install. Use a virtual environment instead.

Related content

• Create Foundry resources with the Microsoft Foundry SDK
• Get started with Foundry
• Microsoft Foundry SDK reference for Python
• Microsoft Foundry SDK reference for .NET
• Microsoft Foundry SDK reference for JavaScript and TypeScript
• Microsoft Foundry SDK reference for Java