fix: A365 Notification Routes Not Marked as Agentic — Deprioritized by SDK 1.4.68+ Route Ordering

[flaviocdc]

A365 Notification Routes Not Marked as Agentic — Deprioritized by SDK 1.4.68+ Route Ordering

Problem

After upgrading Microsoft.Agents.Builder, A365 notification activities (email, comment) with type=message, channelId=agents, recipient.role=agenticUser are no longer routed to OnAgentNotification. Instead, they are intercepted by application-level OnActivity(ActivityTypes.Message, isAgenticOnly: true) handlers.

This repo pins Microsoft.Agents.Builder at 1.4.83 (see Directory.Packages.props). The breaking change was introduced in SDK 1.4.68-beta and also affects the latest 1.5.83 beta.

Root Cause

In microsoft/Agents-for-net@90e3d788 ("Using RouteBuilders internally", version 1.4.68-beta), AgentApplication.AddRoute(RouteSelector, ...) gained a new bool isAgenticOnly = false parameter. Routes created with isAgenticOnly: true (e.g., via OnActivity) are now flagged with RouteFlags.Agentic, which gives them Order = Agentic(1) in RouteList — sorted before all Order = Other(0) routes regardless of rank or insertion order.

AgentExtension.AddRoute (used by AgentNotification.OnAgentNotification and OnLifecycleNotification) calls AgentApplication.AddRoute without passing isAgenticOnly, so it defaults to false. This means notification routes are classified as Other(0) and are evaluated after any Agentic(1) routes.

In 1.4.1, AddRoute had no isAgenticOnly parameter — both notification and message routes were Other(0), so insertion order determined priority and OnAgentNotification (registered first) won.

In 1.4.68+, OnActivity(Message, isAgenticOnly: true) is Agentic(1) and always evaluated first, intercepting notifications before OnAgentNotification gets a chance.

Timeline

Version	Commit	Behavior
1.4.1	microsoft/Agents-for-net@693890ed	Both routes Other(0) → insertion order wins → notifications routed correctly
1.4.68	microsoft/Agents-for-net@90e3d788	AddRoute gains isAgenticOnly param; OnActivity now uses TypeRouteBuilder.AsAgentic(true) — breaking change
1.4.83 / 1.5.83	microsoft/Agents-for-net@cc1ec4d8	Same broken behavior; message routes are Agentic(1), notification routes remain Other(0)

Fix

Mark A365 notification routes as agentic since they are always agentic requests (recipient.role = agenticUser):

- AddRoute(_app, routeSelector, routeHandler, false, rank, autoSignInHandlers);
+ AddRoute(_app, routeSelector, routeHandler, isAgenticOnly: true, rank: rank, autoSignInHandlers: autoSignInHandlers);

Applied to both OnAgentNotification and OnLifecycleNotification in AgentNotification.cs.

Additional changes

• Azure.Identity bumped from 1.14.2 → 1.17.1 to satisfy transitive dependency from Microsoft.Agents.Authentication.Msal 1.4.83
• 9 routing integration tests added that exercise the real AgentApplication.OnTurnAsync dispatch pipeline, proving notification handlers win over competing generic agentic message handlers. With isAgenticOnly: false, 7 of 9 tests fail.

[github-actions]

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Dependency Review

✅ No vulnerabilities or license issues or OpenSSF Scorecard issues found.

Snapshot Warnings

⚠️: No snapshots were found for the head SHA 339a2e6.

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Scanned Files

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Fixes A365 notification routing priority regressions introduced by agentic route ordering changes in newer Microsoft.Agents.* SDKs by ensuring notification routes are classified as agentic and therefore evaluated before generic agentic message routes.

Changes:

• Mark OnAgentNotification and OnLifecycleNotification routes as isAgenticOnly: true so they participate in agentic route ordering.
• Add integration-style routing tests that exercise AgentApplication.OnTurnAsync dispatch behavior in the presence of competing agentic message handlers.
• Update central package versions (notably Azure.Identity and Microsoft.Agents.*).

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

File	Description
src/Tests/Microsoft.Agents.A365.Notifications.Tests/AgentNotificationRoutingTests.cs	Adds routing integration tests to validate notification handlers win over generic agentic message handlers.
src/Notification/Microsoft.Agents.A365.Notifications/AgentNotification.cs	Updates notification/lifecycle route registration to pass isAgenticOnly: true.
src/Directory.Packages.props	Bumps central package versions for Azure.Identity and Microsoft.Agents.*.

[flaviocdc]

Thanks for the review feedback — all 5 comments addressed in 339a2e6.