The Microsoft Agent Framework significantly elevates AI agent orchestration. A standout feature is its implementation of the Agent–User Interaction (AG-UI) Protocol, which standardizes how AI agents connect to user-facing applications.

Below is a quick-start guide to connecting these components into a fully end-to-end solution using local Ollama models.

1. Service Configuration

First, configure the dependency injection container. The ChatClientAgent is based on the IChatClient abstraction from Microsoft.Extensions.AI.

Note: We register the agent as a Keyed Service to allow for multiple distinct agents within the same host.

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// 1. Register the Ollama Client
builder.Services.AddTransient<IChatClient>(provider =>
{
var factory = provider.GetRequiredService<IHttpClientFactory>();
// Ensure you use a wrapper that handles standard formatting
// (see Implementation Note below)
return new OllamaApiClient(factory.CreateClient("OllamaClient"), "phi4");
});

// 2. Register the AI Agent
builder.Services.AddKeyedTransient<ChatClientAgent>(
"local-ollama-agent",
(provider, key) =>
{
var options = new ChatClientAgentOptions
{
Id = key.ToString(),
Name = "Local Assistant",
Description = "An AI agent running on local Ollama.",
ChatOptions = new ChatOptions { Temperature = 0 }
};

return provider.GetRequiredService<IChatClient>()
.CreateAIAgent(options, provider.GetRequiredService<ILoggerFactory>());
});

2. Expose the AG-UI Endpoint

Once configured, map the agent instance directly to an HTTP route. This exposes the agent via the standard AG-UI protocol.

var agent = app.Services.GetRequiredKeyedService<ChatClientAgent>("local-ollama-agent");

// Expose the agent on the root path
app.MapAGUI("/", agent);

3. Connect a Client

To consume the agent programmatically, the framework provides the AGUIChatClient. This allows .NET applications to communicate with your agent over HTTP seamlessly.

var chatClient = new AGUIChatClient(
httpClient,
"http://localhost:5000",
provider.GetRequiredService<ILoggerFactory>());

var clientAgent = chatClient.CreateAIAgent(
name: "local-client",
description: "AG-UI Client Agent");

Frontend Integration: The AG-UI Protocol also offers ready-made libraries for TypeScript and Python, allowing you to spin up frontend interfaces in minutes.

Implementation Note: Protocol Compliance

The AG-UI protocol mandates that all messages contain a messageId property. Native Ollama responses do not currently provide this. To ensure compatibility, I created a simple wrapper class to inject the required IDs into the Ollama response stream.

Complete sample code

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