Amplifier Work

A small, provider-neutral bundle for working with a live Amplifier host. It combines background delegation, visible boundary compaction, transcript retrieval, and filesystem, shell, and search tools. The host supplies credentials, approvals, canonical history, live input, and presentation.

This repository and the loop dependency are private during development. Normal GitHub access is required. No credentials are included in the bundle.

Select the bundle

Use this source as a conversation's root bundle:

git+https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-work@main#subdirectory=bundle.md

The bundle and its module sources follow main, so host ecosystem updates can advance them together. Hosts should stage and validate updates before activation and retain the installed revisions for rollback. A local checkout can also be selected by its absolute bundle.md path.

The root contributes nine tool modules, including apply_patch, delegate, read_transcript, load_skill, managed bash, tool_exec, web_search and web_fetch. Modules may expose more than one callable tool. It does not select a provider, model, or reasoning effort. Other capabilities must be composed explicitly.

Work + Amplifier development

Use the independent Work-based development root:

git+https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-work@main#subdirectory=bundles/work-amp-dev.md

Its exact includes are:

includes:
  - bundle: work:bundle.md
  - bundle: git+https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-foundation@main#subdirectory=behaviors/amp-dev.yaml

This is Work + the portable amp-dev capability, not Anchors + Work. It includes neither Anchors nor presets/anchors-work.md. Work retains its loop-live and context-managed defaults. Foundation's behavior adds the lean amp-dev:amplifier-dev-expert, short ecosystem instructions, and the Tester behavior with DTU/Gitea capabilities; it selects no orchestrator or context manager. Applications may override the complete root's runtime defaults.

Both Work roots explicitly load @work:context/system.md, the unchanged operating instruction shared at that path. Root bodies replace included bodies, so the variant preserves Work's instruction rather than relying on include fallback. The amp-dev context accumulates through its behavior and is not repeated in either body.

Work is included first. List-valued tool configuration accumulates parent-first, so Work skill sources precede sources contributed by the amp-dev dependency chain; reversing the includes is not a byte-identical composition. Verify the intended same-name skill precedence. Local composition and prompt-construction qualification passes; an isolated host also passed authenticated HTTPS, real root/expert execution and browser conversation reload checks. See execution validation.

Extend an existing bundle

Compose the behavior last to retain the existing provider and tool configuration:

includes:
  - bundle: <your-existing-bundle>
  - bundle: git+https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-work@main#subdirectory=behaviors/work-local.yaml

The behavior adds transcript retrieval while preserving both the host's orchestrator and context manager. It does not install the root's filesystem, shell, search, or delegate tools. Its sources follow main through the host ecosystem updater.

To select Work's live loop and managed context, compose bundles/work-session.yaml from your root instead. That session composition includes the same transcript behavior and selects loop-live plus context-managed. Work and Anchors + Work already use it; moving context selection there leaves their declared runtime defaults unchanged. Existing consumers of behaviors/work-local.yaml that relied on it to select managed context must move that root include to bundles/work-session.yaml, or choose their context manager explicitly in their own complete root. This migration does not imply any behavior should choose a host runtime.

Behavior and boundaries

• Eligible delegate calls run in the background only with async: true. A pending receipt is not a completed result; live_job provides result and cancellation controls. Waiting can wake for user input.
• The root enables self-delegation with agent: self and excludes recursive delegation from children. Four pending jobs is a per-loop limit.
• On hosts that support effective model inheritance, children follow the parent's selected model and reasoning settings unless an explicit override applies.
• Context preparation pauses at a request boundary for a continuation summary, configured to trigger at 70% of the budget and target 1,500 summary tokens. Recent work and pending operation references remain available. Original admitted history belongs to the host and can be retrieved with read_transcript.
• The host owns actual concurrency, event delivery, and recovery. A finite host stays finite; this bundle alone does not create a concurrent user interface.
• Patch editing reuses the existing filesystem bundle's patch module. Its native operation schema also works as a function tool for other providers. Hosts must apply their shared write policy to both filesystem and patch tools; the portable module itself defaults to the session workspace and follows symlinks before checking its configured allow/deny lists. Adding a tool is not permission to bypass a denied write.
• Conversation search, application actions, artifact presentation, and worker controls are discovered from the host when present. The root does not emulate those application services or assume every host supplies them.

The root and Anchors preset also include behaviors/work-execution.yaml, which adds managed Bash handles, tool_exec, and real DDGS web search. This behavior preserves both the host's orchestrator and context manager. The complete Work and Anchors roots enable approved programmatic dispatch through their orchestrator configuration; other compatible roots can explicitly opt in with session.orchestrator.config.programmatic_dispatch: true. The standalone bundles/work-session.yaml keeps its existing loop defaults and now owns managed-context selection. The lightweight work-local.yaml overlay is transcript-only; include work-execution.yaml for the additional tools. Existing tool safety policies still apply. Raw interpreter stdin requires an unrestricted trusted host policy. Explicitly requested PTYs are supported on POSIX hosts when the mounted Bash module and host policy permit them. Process handles do not remain live after their owner exits; inspect retained operation evidence rather than replaying an uncertain effect.

Programmatic JavaScript runs in a fresh bounded process and calls only through normal tool permissions, with attributable call receipts. It cannot delegate, run background calls or retain variables. Durable operation records, asynchronous questions, saved task state and derived compaction persistence are optional host services discovered through shared actions. Unknown effects are never replayed. This composition alone is not evidence of ChatGPT output-quality parity.

This change requires the managed-process, truthful-web and approved-dispatch upstream changes to be merged before publication. Draft integration uses reviewed local overrides; maintained sources stay on main. Tested revision receipts are evidence, never source pins. See docs/EXECUTION-VALIDATION.md for acceptance state.

Work skill library

The root and Anchors + Work preset include 33 on-demand skills: documents, PDF, presentations, spreadsheets, live Excel guidance, visualization, template creation, integration management, five core authoring/research/image workflows, and 20 original reference templates. Use load_skill or a host's /skill-name support. Work owns 32 skill bodies; the canonical imagegen bundle supplies the remaining imagegen skill through its skill-only behavior. The default Work root does not mount an image generator. The library is discovered through bundle namespaces from any workspace. Project and personal skills with the same name take precedence. Within each scope, native .amplifier/skills precedes shared .agents/skills; both project directories precede both personal directories. See the Agent Skills integration notes for format and testing boundaries.

These are original Amplifier implementations of the workflow categories in the inspected OpenAI installation, not copies of its proprietary packages. The document package explicitly restricts extraction and redistribution, and the default-template plugin is marked proprietary. No source helper scripts, private artifact-tool runtime, or retained OpenAI template assets are included. The 20 templates are newly authored Work references with different designs and models. See migration scope and limitations and the complete source-to-target manifest.

Compose only the skills behavior to add the library to another root:

includes:
  - bundle: <existing-bundle>
  - bundle: git+https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-work@main#subdirectory=behaviors/work-skills.yaml

This behavior follows current ecosystem branches and preserves existing runtime, provider, and agent configuration while accumulating skill sources. work-local.yaml is the transcript-only behavior; bundles/work-session.yaml selects both the loop and context manager.

Office/PDF authoring uses optional public Python dependencies. For a new setup, first resolve current Amplifier dependencies and retain its private receipt:

python3 scripts/resolve_amplifier_latest.py --mode latest --project . \
  --evidence /absolute/private/new-work-artifact-resolution
uv sync --locked --group dev --group artifacts

For normal skill use, an agent can use an existing suitable environment or set up a task-local environment following the skill instructions. Rendering also requires LibreOffice and Poppler on PATH (or WORK_SOFFICE and WORK_PDFTOPPM executable paths). Loading a skill does not install these dependencies. Image generation, live Excel, web research, and native cloud imports require corresponding mounted host capabilities. Work supplies no account credentials.

Unified can open standalone HTML snapshots or persistent canvas apps through its discovered app_control actions. The optional visualization host reference documents this path without adding an application dependency to Work.

Ownership and validation

This bundle owns composition and operating guidance. Its runtime dependencies own execution and context policy; consuming applications own their integration and acceptance tests. Composition tests verify loading from an unrelated working directory and preservation of existing providers/tools by the behavior overlay.

python3 scripts/resolve_amplifier_latest.py --mode latest --project . \
  --evidence /absolute/private/new-work-development-resolution
uv sync --locked --group dev
uv run --no-sync pytest -q

The resolver refreshes Amplifier dependencies, including transitive packages, before recording the lock used by the test environment. It preserves the old lock as evidence. To reproduce a prior qualification, select its recorded lock and use --mode replay instead. See latest dependency resolution for receipt contents and boundaries.

For a coordinated local imagegen candidate, set WORK_IMAGEGEN_BUNDLE to its absolute checkout path when running pytest. This explicit test-only include override exercises its real manifests and skill without changing maintained sources. Without it, tests resolve the canonical imagegen bundle on main; that source must be accessible.

No provider calls are made by these tests. For initial Amplifier setup, see the ecosystem entry point.

Anchors + Work preset

Use presets/anchors-work.md as a root to retain Anchors tools, agents, and principles while applying Work execution and managed context:

git+https://github.com/microsoft/amplifier-bundle-work@main#subdirectory=presets/anchors-work.md

Register it as anchors-work in a consuming host. This preset follows the Anchors root on main and composes the Work session last. Anchors still owns its transitive dependencies and routing policy; the preset does not freeze every Anchors dependency or force worker models to match the parent. Configured host providers and policies remain in effect.

Contributing

Note

This project is not currently accepting external contributions, but we're actively working toward opening this up. We value community input and look forward to collaborating in the future. For now, feel free to fork and experiment!

Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit Contributor License Agreements.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Trademarks

This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.