How to use Dapr Agents to write custom Agents in .NET

[VenkateshSrini]

Hi,
Need guidelines to write .NET >=8.0. It may also need to work with other agents written in other platform using other Agent SDK

[yaron2]

Hi, there's work being done to support .NET. cc @WhitWaldo for visibility

[WhitWaldo]

Hi, Need guidelines to write .NET >=8.0. It may also need to work with other agents written in other platform using other Agent SDK

Work in progress!

[VenkateshSrini]

Are you planning to use Microsoft Orleans for the actor framework. Also, I can you tell me how will you as be including Semantic Kernel Agent. I ask this because most to Agent related work are handled there. Microsoft AutoGen is also good one but that is again work in progress. Also, when you finish this I have one request, please include all the component installation and pre-requisite installation Dapr, any redis/postgres ect:- on one place. That makes first time installers like us life easier. Most of time we keep searching the documents back and forth

[WhitWaldo]

Are you planning to use Microsoft Orleans for the actor framework. Also, I can you tell me how will you as be including Semantic Kernel Agent. I ask this because most to Agent related work are handled there. Microsoft AutoGen is also good one but that is again work in progress. Also, when you finish this I have one request, please include all the component installation and pre-requisite installation Dapr, any redis/postgres ect:- on one place. That makes first time installers like us life easier. Most of time we keep searching the documents back and forth

No, this will use Dapr Actors for the actor framework. Just as the existing agentic implementation in Python is utilizing other Dapr building blocks like workflows, actors, state management and conversation, so too this is looking to be a 1:1 .NET implementation of the same and isn't "reimagining" the concept using entirely .NET-specific functionality.

I'll supplement the Dapr documentation with information about it, but the idea will be that you install it like you would any other Dapr package and when launched adjacent to your Dapr sidecar, it'll handle the necessary abstractions for you, much like Dapr Workflows abstracts away the actors functionality.

[thangchung]

Look cool. Is there any ETA for it? @WhitWaldo

Link related: #53

[WhitWaldo]

Not yet. Juggling a lot of plates right now, but the goal is to coincide with the 1.16 release at the latest.

[sicoyle]

@WhitWaldo can you pls link the dotnet implementation and then I can close this out. Or was there anything else intended to be done here? cc @bibryam

[WhitWaldo]

@WhitWaldo can you pls link the dotnet implementation and then I can close this out. Or was there anything else intended to be done here? cc @bibryam

There is no .NET implementation of Dapr Agents. That's exclusively a Python implementation at this time so far as I'm aware.

[sicoyle]

I just meant it might be nice to link your .NET agent work here, @WhitWaldo, but I’ll defer to Bilgin if we want anything else added. 🙂

[WhitWaldo]

I just meant it might be nice to link your .NET agent work here, @WhitWaldo, but I’ll defer to Bilgin if we want anything else added. 🙂

Ah, that.. it's WIP and separate from anything directly covered by the Dapr Agents functionality itself.

[bibryam]

@VenkateshSrini there are no plans to implement Dapr agents in other languages.
Insteadwe will be integrating Dapr itself with other frameworks, such as Microsoft Agent Framework.

[WhitWaldo]

@VenkateshSrini @thangchung In the short term, I'd point you to the Dapr implementation atop Microsoft.Extensions.AI here

Also, Dapr has its own actor framework, so no, we wouldn't be implementing atop Orleans.