Solution entry · Developer labs
Copilot Studio + MCP Lab
A hands-on public lab for deploying a small Model Context Protocol tool server and adding it as a tool in Microsoft Copilot Studio.
What changed in the design.
Customer-neutral framing keeps the pattern reusable without claiming private results.
Before the solution
MCP concepts can be difficult to connect to practice when the protocol, server deployment, tool definition, client configuration, and invocation path are learned separately.
What was built
The public lab uses a deliberately small TypeScript joke server to walk through MCP tools, Azure Container Apps deployment, a custom connector, and connection from Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Value enabled
The lab is designed to give builders a bounded end-to-end reference they can inspect before adapting the pattern to a real tool.
How the public pattern fits together.
A Copilot client sends an MCP request to a bounded tool server and presents the result back to the user.
A user invokes the configured tool from Microsoft Copilot Studio.
The client sends a protocol request using the published tool contract.
The deployed sample server executes the bounded joke operation.
The client presents the tool result for the user to accept, ignore, or continue from.
What the project demonstrates.
- Implements a small public MCP server and callable tool.
- Documents deployment and connection steps for the lab.
- Exposes four bounded tools backed by two public joke APIs.
- Includes Azure Container Apps deployment infrastructure and Copilot Studio setup guidance.
- The sample tool is deliberately non-consequential and does not perform business writes.
- The user chooses whether to invoke the tool and how to use its response.
- The deployment guide warns that the lab creates a public MCP endpoint and recommends removing it after use.
- Real tools require authentication, authorization, input validation, logging, and least-privilege design beyond the sample.
- The lab demonstrates a narrow sample tool rather than a production MCP operating model, and no automated tests are configured.
- Repository license metadata is inconsistent: GitHub detects MIT while the package manifest declares ISC.
- The support file remains an unedited template, and the example does not establish security, reliability, or support guarantees.
Follow the evidence.
These public sources support the entry. No private customer material or internal evidence was used.
- Copilot Studio + MCP Lab public repository Public README, MCP server source, Bicep deployment assets, package manifest, and support file are the evidence base for this entry.
- GitHub public repository metadata Repository created 2025-07-21; last public push 2025-07-21. These are repository facts, not adoption evidence.