Copilot Studio Best Practices

Only read the file relevant to the current task — do NOT read all files.

JIT Glossary → jit-glossary.md

Automatically loads a CSV of customer-specific acronyms and terminology into a global variable (Global.Glossary) on the first user message. The orchestrator uses it to silently expand acronyms before searching knowledge sources — improving retrieval quality without the user having to explain internal jargon.

Read this best-practice when:

• The user wants to add a glossary, acronym list, or terminology table
• Knowledge search quality is poor because the agent doesn't understand internal abbreviations
• The user asks about loading CSV/text data from SharePoint into a variable at conversation start

JIT User Context → jit-user-context.md

Loads the current user's Microsoft 365 profile (country, department, display name, etc.) into global variables on the first user message. The orchestrator uses these to personalize answers — e.g., returning the correct country-specific WFH policy without asking the user where they are.

Read best-practice this when:

• The user wants country-aware, department-aware, or role-aware answers
• The agent needs to call the M365 Users connector (GetMyProfile / UserGet_V2)
• The user asks about personalizing responses based on who is chatting

Combining patterns

You can also combine more than one best pratice. For example, when using both glossary and user context, merge them into a single conversation-init topic rather than creating separate OnActivity topics. Use the template at ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../../templates/topics/conversation-init.topic.mcs.yml. The individual files explain the details.