Create a private skill catalog in Foundry Agent Service

Create a private skill catalog in Foundry Agent Service using Azure API Center. Let developers discover and use organization-scoped agent skills.

This feature is currently in public preview. This preview is provided without a service-level agreement, and we don’t recommend it for production workloads. Certain features might not be supported or might have constrained capabilities. For more information, see Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews.

Create a private skill catalog so developers in your organization can discover and use agent skills through Foundry. A skill is a reusable capability - instructions, bundled scripts, and tool references - that an agent can consume to extend what it does. A private skill catalog uses Azure API Center to register organization-scoped skills that only your developers can access.

Prerequisites

• A Foundry project. For setup guidance, see Create projects in Microsoft Foundry.
• Permissions to discover and use skills in your Foundry project. For more information, see Role-based access control in Microsoft Foundry.
• An Azure API Center. “API Center” is the name that developers use to find the catalog in Foundry. Use a descriptive name.
• One or more skills that you want to share with your organization, typically hosted in a source-code repository such as GitHub. Register them with API Center by following Register skills in your API center.

Plan administrator and developer access

Before you create the catalog, decide who manages it and who consumes it.

Goal	Who	Where	What to do
Create and manage the skill catalog	Catalog admins	Azure API Center	Create the API Center resource, register skills, and define the allowed tools each skill can access.
Discover skills from the private catalog	Developers	Azure API Center (RBAC)	Assign access so developers can view the registered skills.
Use skills	Developers	Foundry project	Confirm developers can access the Foundry project and can use skills from the catalog.

Register skills and define allowed tools

Register each skill in your API Center so it’s discoverable, and scope what it’s allowed to reach.

1. In the Azure portal, go to your API Center resource.
2. In the sidebar under Inventory, select Assets.
3. Select + Register an asset > Skill, and provide the skill’s title, summary, description, lifecycle stage, and the Source URL of the Git repository that holds the skill’s source code.
4. Under Allowed tools, select + Add tool to specify the APIs or MCP servers from your API inventory that the skill can access.

The allowed tools list is the governance boundary for a skill. It explicitly defines which resources the skill can consume, so a shared skill can’t reach endpoints you didn’t approve.

1. Optionally add License and Contact information, then select Create.

To keep the catalog in sync with source instead of re-uploading, integrate a Git repository with your API Center. For more information, see Synchronize API assets from a Git repo.

(Optional) Assess skill quality before promotion

API Center can automatically assess registered skills against default or custom criteria before you promote them.

1. In the Azure portal, go to your API Center resource.
2. Select Governance > AI Assessment.
3. Select the Skills tab, set Assessment status to Enabled, and accept the default criteria or add custom criteria (name, score range, pass threshold, and weight).
4. Select Save.

Developers can then view assessment results on each skill’s details page in the API Center portal.

Grant developer access to the catalog

Assign Azure RBAC permissions so developers can discover skills from your private catalog in Foundry.

1. Decide whether to grant access to a security group or to individual users.
2. Assign at least the Azure API Center Data Reader role (or an equivalent custom role) to those users.

Role assignments can take up to 24 hours to propagate. If developers don’t see the catalog immediately, wait and try again.

Verify catalog discovery in Foundry

After you grant access, confirm that developers can find and use the catalog in the Foundry portal.

1. In the Foundry portal, open the project that your developers use.
2. Go to Build > Skills.
3. Use search and filters to find your private skill catalog by the API Center name.
4. Select a skill from the catalog and review its summary, source, compatibility, and allowed tools.

If the catalog appears and displays your registered skills, the configuration is complete.

Troubleshoot private skill catalog issues

If you encounter problems setting up or using your private skill catalog, use the following table to identify and resolve common issues.

Issue	Cause	Resolution
The private skill catalog doesn’t appear in Foundry.	You don’t have access to the API Center resource, or you’re in the wrong Foundry project.	Confirm you have the Azure API Center Data Reader role assignment. Then confirm you’re in the expected Foundry project and go to Build > Skills.
The catalog appears, but a skill is missing.	The skill isn’t registered, or Git sync hasn’t run.	Confirm the skill is registered under Inventory > Assets in API Center, and that any Git repository integration has synced.
A skill runs but can’t reach a resource.	The resource isn’t in the skill’s allowed tools.	Add the required API or MCP server to the skill’s Allowed tools in API Center.
The catalog doesn’t appear after role assignment.	Azure RBAC role assignments can take up to 24 hours to propagate.	Wait up to 24 hours and try again. If the issue persists, verify the role assignment in the Azure portal under Access control (IAM).
The skill source can’t be opened.	The Source URL is incorrect, or the repository is private.	Verify the Git repository URL in the skill registration and confirm the developer has access to the repository.

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