Ask Your Agent About Its Own Features

What you'll build

A hands-on walkthrough of using DocsGuide — the built-in custom agent that answers questions about SRE Agent features, configuration, and concepts using official documentation. Learn more → DocsGuide. Time: ~5 minutes.

Prerequisites

• An Azure SRE Agent in Running state
• Access to the agent's chat interface
• Outbound network access to sre.azure.com (DocsGuide fetches documentation pages at runtime)

Step 1: Open the agent chat

1. Navigate to sre.azure.com and select your agent
2. The chat interface opens with a "New thread" view and an input field

Checkpoint: The chat input is visible and shows the placeholder "Ask a question or enter a slash(/) to use a command."

Step 2: Ask a concept question

Type a question about an SRE Agent concept:

What are run modes?

Wait approximately 10 seconds for the response.

Checkpoint: You see:

• A "Parallel Exploration" card with "1 agent · 1 completed"
• A nested DocsGuide custom agent card with a search icon and green checkmark
• The DocsGuide card shows its task (e.g., "Define run modes")
• Below the card, the agent's synthesized answer about run modes

Step 3: Ask a setup question

Try a setup-oriented question:

How do I connect PagerDuty to my agent?

Checkpoint: The response includes specific setup steps — navigate to Builder → Incident platform, enter an API key, enable the quickstart response plan — sourced from the official PagerDuty tutorial documentation.

Step 4: Ask a feature question

Ask about a specific capability:

How do scheduled tasks work?

Checkpoint: The response explains scheduled task creation, recurrence options, and how they connect to custom agents — drawn from the scheduled tasks capability and tutorial pages.

Step 5: Try "Can I" questions

These question patterns also trigger DocsGuide:

Can I use Python to extend my agent?

Checkpoint: DocsGuide returns information about Python tools, including how to create and deploy custom Python tools, sourced from the Python code execution documentation.

Tips for effective questions

Question type	Good example	Less effective example
Specific feature	"How do I set up incident response plans?"	"Tell me about the agent"
Setup steps	"How do I connect my Kusto connector?"	"Set up everything"
Concept clarification	"What is the difference between skills and knowledge?"	"Explain the agent"
Capability check	"Can I send notifications via Teams?"	"What can you do?"

What you learned

• DocsGuide activates automatically when you ask documentation questions — no setup needed
• Three question patterns work best: "How do I...", "Can I...", "What is..."
• Answers are sourced from official documentation at sre.azure.com, not training data
• DocsGuide appears as a custom agent task card showing which documentation pages it consulted
• Works identically in portal chat and Teams bot

Related

Resource	What you'll learn
DocsGuide →	How DocsGuide works and what makes it different
Custom agents →	Built-in vs custom agents
Agent Playground →	Test capabilities interactively